


Over My Dead Body

by Anonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: But he also becomes a ghost, Getting Together, Ghosts, M/M, Magic, Major character death - Freeform, Murder Mystery, So he's not gone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29099574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Iain Howell comes from a family of mediums and has never personally spoken to a ghost. Cyrus Merrick is an artist, and he's only at this party because it came with a paycheck. He's going to regret accepting the invitation as much as Iain will regret not studying the finer points of spirit channeling.Just because you're dead doesn't mean you have to be gone. Especially when there's a murderer to pin down and the only person who can see you is someone you wish you'd met earlier.
Relationships: Famous M!Artist Who is Murdered At Dinner Party/M!Medium Investigating the Crime
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	Over My Dead Body

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kryptontease](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptontease/gifts).



"You look fine," Elijah told him.

Iain pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and inhaled deeply. It did not help. The corner of the ferry they'd tucked themselves into smelled strongly of saltwater and faintly of gasoline, but Iain didn't know enough about ships to worry about that. He was extremely busy worrying about everything currently happening to him and everything about to happen to him instead.

It had been a clear morning when Iain left his apartment in Saint Bethjons. The weather app on his phone promised a warm summer's day and a pleasantly cool evening breeze, even out in Pointche, the ultimate destination of the ferry. Instead as soon as they'd sailed far enough away from shore that the service on their phones cut out, clouds gathered overhead. When they had stepped out onto the deck in an attempt to clear Iain's head with fresh air (which had not worked), the horizon in the direction of Pointche was distinctly dark. Iain had started to feel uneasy, but the sun had still been fairly bright, and they'd taken the opportunity to snap a few pictures.

Then the speakers crackled with an announcement to expect rough water and they'd gone back inside.

The ship tilted up, then rocked forward. It was like being bounced on a trampoline when you thought you'd been on a nice solid sidewalk. Iain peered through his fingers at his reflection in the mirror and swallowed. The freckles on his face stood out in the harsh bathroom light: it looked like all the color had drained from his skin.

"If you don't trust me," Elijah said, from his position at the bathroom door, "maybe you'll believe my mother. She says you look, and I quote, 'dashing.' She thinks the green shirt sets off your eyes. Dad says we look happy."

Iain dropped his hands and gripped the edge of the sink. "Great. Does that mean we're done taking photos?"

"See, when you agreed to come with me to this thing, it was for the express purpose of taking photos."

"That was before you dragged me onto a _ship._ "

"It's a boat. I think."

The solid porcelain mass of the sink was cool under Iain's hands. He was tempted to press his cheek against it, but that would mean kneeling and wrinkling the suit he'd so carefully dressed in for tonight. Then the ship rocked again, and his stomach with it, and he was glad for his white-knuckle grip on the sink. At the edge of the bathroom Elijah reached up and braced himself on the doorframe. There was no window in the bathroom but the brief sound of whistling wind cut into the air anyway.

Iain looked at his friend. If his eyes were still nearly gray with nausea instead of pale green, it would just make him seem more mysterious. He let his voice go scratchy. "If there's a storm and we capsize, I will pin your spirit to the ocean," he promised. "You'll spend a hundred years haunting fish."

"You won't do that because you would be too busy drowning," Elijah said, grinning fondly.

The grin made Elijah's brown eyes light up. It also made his face look more familiar, for a moment. Iain would have relaxed if his stomach hadn't been threatening to crawl up his throat. They'd arranged this all by text and phone calls. It wasn't until Elijah had shown up that morning in an even nicer suit than the one Iain had chosen that Iain learned his old friend had grown a short, dark beard since the last time they'd seen each other. It made him look weirdly older. If Iain had at all been into men who could pick him up with one hand he would've considered making tonight's fake date a real one.

Of course, then the Owens would definitely start planning their wedding, and the whole point of the fake date was to free Elijah from the immediate pressure of wedding planning.

"I regret most of my choices," Iain said, looking up at the ceiling.

"We're not going to capsize." Elijah made a dismissive gesture and pocketed his phone. "One, it's not even supposed to start raining until after dark."

"It wasn't supposed to rain _at all._ "

Elijah ignored this. "Two, this place is stuffed with life jackets. And three, I did actually take all those swimming lessons you refused to. If we fall in the water you can just hang onto me."

"Did you also take CPR lessons?"

"Stop whining. Let's go back upstairs, this tiny room is probably making it worse."

Sighing, Iain slunk out after him. Chatter from the upper deck drifted down as they started up the stairs. Surely they had to almost be to Pointche by now.

'Free party,' Elijah had said. 'There'll be fancy food,' Elijah had said. 'We won't even tell my parents we're on a date, we'll just send them some photos and they'll assume.' All Iain had to do was tag along, look pretty, and not embarrass his friend in front of people who had the money to propel Elijah's career along. The hosts were rich and had rich friends who liked all kinds of art, hence Elijah's invitation, along with a guest list including a handful of regional artists. Elijah had heard rumors that there was also supposed to be some famous hotshot painter originally from Pointche itself there, but nobody knew for sure. It could just be that the hosts were displaying a new painting of his.

The ship rocked again. Iain gripped the stair railing very tightly and took a deep breath before taking another step up.

There was no reason to be seasick. He repeated this to himself several times before they reached the top of the staircase. The water wasn't so rough that people weren't moving around the ship. He should be able to handle this. Point She was only ninety minutes away from Saint Bethjons and there couldn't possibly be that much of the trip remaining. He was not going to get sick. He wasn't.

But every little rise and fall of the water rocked the ship and rocked Iain's stomach along with it. His mother had told him to take a ginger potion before he'd left. She'd given him some in a tiny green vial. Unfortunately, Iain had a terrible distrust of potions and an even worse habit of not listening to his mother.

As they reached the top of the stairs, wind blew in from the open deck door. It knocked someone's hat off and she shrieked, cutting in front of Iain and Elijah to go chasing after it. Elijah grabbed Iain's arm to steady him. Iain tried to concentrate on the scent of salt in the air and not the tiny green vial he really should have drunk while he was still on the dock.

Here Igraine Howell would ominously intone something like, _'By the rising dawn, Iain's biggest regret would be not listening to his mother.'_

But then she would also wink at Iain while the clients weren't looking, and remind him about the ginger potion, and pat down his brown hair where it had gotten ruffled by the wind.

Anyway, nobody knew better than Iain that he should listen to Igraine more often. When your mother could talk to ghosts and occasionally predict the future, it paid to listen to her. By now he could ominously intone all by himself. _'Iain, why don't you ever take good advice when you hear it?',_ and, _'Iain, why do you never think things through?',_ etc. (Though he didn't think anyone would pay his mother's going rates for that, no matter how dramatically he pitched his voice.)

He assumed his biggest regret of the night would be doubting the trustworthiness of corner store potions. Or refusing to take swimming lessons.

Not slacking off on studying the finer points of spirit channeling.

***

It was clear from the frozen smile on Avery Dolyn's face that he hadn't expected Cyrus to be there. From the way his eyes widened before he clamped down on his expression, it was not a welcome surprise. Not exactly the response an artist hoped to see from a collector.

Still, Avery owned more Cyrus Merrick originals than Cyrus himself did at this point, so it was unlikely Cyrus was about to be ejected from the premises.

Cyrus found "My apologies for interrupting" on his tongue. He brought a practiced smile of his own to his face and lifted one hand, palm out, in a conciliatory gesture.

It didn't melt Avery's expression, but it did ease the man's rigid posture. Internally, Cyrus sighed. He hated being thrust in the middle of other people's drama. If he'd known he wasn't expected, he never would have agreed to come to the Dolyn estate.

"No apologies necessary," Avery said. His dark eyes slid behind Cyrus, to the open doorway. "I assume my darling sister is behind this… unexpected surprise?"

"All surprises are unexpected, Avery," Temple said, cheerily. Then she stepped into the office and shut the door behind herself, cutting off what Cyrus had briefly counted on as a quick escape route.

Put side-by-side, Temple on the edge of Avery's desk and Avery still in his seat, the family resemblance was clear. They even had similar taste in clothing: Avery in a pale lavender shirt and Temple in soft violet jumpsuit. Cyrus knew exactly how he would arrange the two of them in a painting to show off the shape of their faces, to highlight the way the bone structure spoke to a shared background, despite the fact that Temple was significantly taller than Avery and her blonde hair several shades darker. It would be a boring and straightforward portrait but simple enough to achieve.

Avery's eyes met Cyrus's. Cyrus pulled his smile a little wider, and the corner of Avery's mouth turned downward for a moment. Then it smoothed out again. Avery leaned back in his chair. Yes, he would make for a boring portrait. Possibly profitable, given that Avery apparently liked Cyrus's work enough to hang a painting on the wall across from his desk, but if this was how easily Avery was taken off guard, the actual painting process would be tedious.

Cyrus would have to make sure never to approach the man from behind. Fate forbid someone throw him a surprise party.

Oblivious or willfully ignoring the look on her brother's face, Temple Dolyn continued on. "You have no idea how hard it's been to keep this a secret for a whole month, Avery," she said. She tapped her knuckles against his desk, and his eyes briefly left Cyrus's face to look at her instead. "You're the first to know. It's going to be the grandest surprise when the guests start arriving."

"A whole month?" Avery asked. His voice was as sunny as his sister's, the sort of cheerfully masked society tone Cyrus had taught himself over the past decade of society drawing him into its clutches (or, to be more accurate, its purses).

"All part of the party arrangements," Temple assured him.

"When your sister explained the importance of the occasion and the impact you're hoping to make with your unveiling, there was no way for me to decline the invitation," Cyrus added, diplomatically.

The invitation to the party had been appended by a generous 'appearance fee.' If Cyrus had been dubious about returning to his hometown for a dinner with a lot of strangers, it had been washed away by the check Temple mailed to him. Enough to cover the airfare and inconvenience besides. Possibly even enough to deal with the awkwardness of being received so poorly by the party's other host.

Avery snapped back into himself. He pushed away from his desk and stood for the first time since Temple and Cyrus had entered the office.

"I've been terribly rude," Avery said, and acted as if he didn't hear his sister chiming in with confirmation. Cyrus kept his own confirmation off his face. Avery stepped out from behind his desk. "I was wrapping up some last minute concerns from work before the caterers and staff arrive."

"You are always 'wrapping up' something for work." Temple shook her head. Long earrings brushed against the sides of her face - she wore charmed jewelry, magically inscribed, like Cyrus himself, although he kept to one earring and a few rings on his hands. "It's time to start getting ready. The caterer has already taken over the kitchen. The custodians for the evening are on their way, and I need you to show them around when they arrive. I need to take Cyrus to his room and check in to make sure the storm won't be delaying any of the other guests."

Avery frowned. It looked somehow less distressed than the smile he'd greeted Cyrus with. "The storm?"

"There are floor-to-ceiling windows behind those curtains, but does he ever open them?" Temple asked Cyrus, gesturing at two heavy taupe curtains against the far wall.

"I have to be able to see my screen," Avery reasoned, shaking his head at Cyrus like Cyrus was a part of this exchange. He walked from his desk over to the window and pulled the curtains apart.

True to Temple's word, wide picture windows sat behind the fabric. From this side of the house the quiet road leading up to the Dolyn estate was hidden, as was any glimpse of the main body of Pointche and its clusters of squat brick buildings, or for that matter any other house or neighbors. The back of the Dolyn home faced the sea and nothing else. There was some clear land by the house. A patio with a fire pit and seating, a large gazebo slightly further out, enough grass for visitors to walk around on before the ground dipped and gave way to sand.

Beyond that the sea waited. There was a wooden fence shielding the house from the beach, with a gate to allow access to the water. It would have been beautiful if not for the promise hung above it all. The sky had turned a dark gray since Cyrus had landed in Pointche only an hour ago. A dog ran past, far ahead of the couple walking it, but other than that no one else was on the beach. The long grass growing in clumps in the sand itself leaned sideways in the wind whipping the surface of the water.

A storm was coming, and it would hit the Dolyn estate head on.

Avery sighed and shut the curtains. "It wasn't supposed to rain at all."

"Tell it to Fate," Temple said. She hopped off the desk and smoothed out the front of her jumpsuit. "If you'll excuse us, I've got flights and ferries to check on, and I'm sure that Cyrus would like to be reunited with his suitcase."

Cyrus inclined his head. "Thank you for welcoming me to your home. It's always an honor to meet a collector."

"No, no, the honor is mine of course." Avery walked across the small office and stuck out his hand, smiling.

There was no more tension or anxiety on his face. In that moment he was terribly handsome, or would have been if Cyrus was interested in men who would pay to secure paintings for private display but apparently hoped they'd never have to cross paths with the artists themselves.

Cyrus shook his hand and smiled back. At this point in his career, it was easy.

***

"You could have warned me that Avery didn't know I was coming," Cyrus said, mildly, as Temple looped her arm through his.

The sounds of activity downstairs faded as they ascended the staircase together. Avery's office was on the first floor, along with the normal common space of any house, and the more unusual 'ballroom masquerading as an oversized dining room' set up to receive that night's guests. The caterers had indeed taken command of the kitchen, and Avery had been letting the custodial staff in as Cyrus and Temple fetched Cyrus's luggage from the entryway.

"Oh, he's such a spoilsport," Temple sighed, which only confirmed that she'd known Cyrus's reception wouldn't be fantastic. "I am sorry for how rude he was. I promise Avery does genuinely love your art. It's always his favorite find. Look!"

They had turned at the top of the staircase. Just beyond the first door, which was closed, a painting hung on the hallway wall.

 _Work #3_ was simply titled. It'd taken Cyrus several months. Originally he had planned on the mirror in the painting to reflect the viewer as well, but at the time he'd only been a student, and mirror paint was expensive. So instead of being forced to view themselves in a reflective surface, all an onlooker saw was the reflection of a mirrorsmith's tired but satisfied expression. The mirrorsmith herself stood in overalls and work gloves, hands on her hips, back to the audience as she looked at her work. Cyrus hadn't seen this painting since he'd graduated from the art academy.

Well. Temple had insisted her brother was a fan, ever since she'd first contacted him. This was just proof.

It also explained why the cousin Cyrus had originally gifted the painting to hadn't invited him over the last time he'd visited Pointche.

He had a brief moment to wonder if Avery, the serious art collector who didn't keep a mirror in his office, would have purchased _Work #3_ if young Cyrus had been able to bring the mirrorsmith's efforts to life. Mirrors were awful luck to have around when you were making bad decisions, compounding whatever foolish things you'd decided to do, reflecting back truths you didn't want to see. That was part of why Cyrus had made them such a theme in his work.

Bad luck, whatever could be said of it, sold. Fate only knew why. And mirrors and reflections were _interesting_ to paint, that much Cyrus could say.

"I like _Lake Before Midnight_ better," Temple said, shaking him out of his thoughts. She touched his elbow and brought him down to the end of the hallway. "Avery only let me see it for a minute. It's in the gallery, covered up for the unveiling."

That painting had gotten his name out of the academy and into galleries and museums. Resales always floated Cyrus's name back into headlines, but it could take months for anything to come of the exposure. He'd noted the sale of _Lake Before Midnight_ when it happened, but it had been several months before Temple contacted him about the unveiling and the party.

"Do you hold an event every time a new work is added to the collection?" he asked.

"No, no. Really I'm the one who likes parties, and I moved into the city years ago. Sometimes I come back to pester my brother." Temple grinned, her nose wrinkling. "It's a good way for him to meet people. He'd work all day and night if I didn't come interrupt him."

"I appreciate the invitation either way," Cyrus decided to say.

Temple pushed the last door in the hallway open. "Maybe you'll meet someone too," she said. Before he could react to that, she stepped away, waving at him. "I'm off to make sure everyone's planes and boats are still on schedule for this afternoon. Avery or I will come fetch you when it's closer to dinner, but if you need something before then, just head downstairs! And thank you _so_ much for coming. Tonight is going to be wonderful."

Cyrus nodded and watched her walk away, and then he stepped through the door.

The guest room was small but nicely furnished. A thin, summer-weight knitted blanket covered the bed, a stranger's painting decorated the space above the headboard, and there was a wooden trunk under the window where Cyrus could set his suitcase. The only mirror was in the attached bathroom.

A small painting of his own hung above the nightstand. A child's shoe breaking the surface of a puddle in a rainstorm. Cyrus couldn't remember who that one had originally been sold to, or if he'd ever heard about it being resold.

He wondered just how much of him had been collected in this house.

***

"That's him, at the top of the stairs. No, don't look!"

Both Iain and Elijah froze in the middle of turning around to look at the stairs.

They had made it all the way to Pointche without Iain getting violently ill on the boat. A taxi had driven them to the mansion they were currently standing in. The man greeting the crowd at the door, Avery Dolyn, had referred to it as 'our family's modest seaside home.'

Iain lived in a second-floor apartment and kept his microwave in the tiny closet of a pantry because it wouldn't fit anywhere else. The Dolyns' house had two _wings_ in addition to two floors, and a room big enough to hold nearly a hundred guests at once. It was a mansion.

Rene Serrano shook his head at them, his dark curls catching the warm ballroom light. (Again: Modest homes did not have ballrooms. The Dolyns had a mansion.) Like Elijah, Rene was an artist from a nearby town, which was how they knew and had spotted each other in the crowd. So far it seemed that all the artists had been invited solely to make all the other guests feel like they were getting some real culture with their fancy drinks.

From what Elijah told him, neither of the Dolyn siblings were artists, either. Just collectors. The party tonight was to show off that collection and the Doylns' connections to the regional art community.

"Can't either of you be subtle?" Rene asked. "People will be gawking at Merrick all night. Let's go get a drink. Then you can glance up."

"Subtly," Elijah said, grinning.

Rene said, "See, this is why I didn't want to pretend to go on a date with you, even to get your parents off your back."

Iain blinked and glared at Elijah, whose face had gone red above the neat line of his beard. The grin was gone. 

Iain raised his eyebrows. "I was your second choice?"

"I picked you because you know me well and my parents like you," Elijah said. But his face was still red. Iain did know him well, and he knew that meant he'd hit on something Elijah had been hoping wouldn't come up.

Iain looked at Rene and said, "I would be very insulted if I actually had any interest in dating Elijah."

Rene smiled. "It's so fortunate for Elijah that he's uninterested in dating, since that seems to be the case with everyone he knows."

"I'm not uninterested in dating, I'm uninterested in getting married on my parents' timeline," Elijah grumbled. When they both gave him surprised looks, he held his hand low in front of himself and flipped them off. Iain couldn't help laughing. Rene coughed several times and hid his mouth behind his hand. "Ha, ha, you're both hilarious. Can we please go get drinks? I do want to get a look at Merrick at some point, even if we don't get to talk to him."

"Why is Merrick such a big deal?" Iain asked.

Now he was the one being stared at.

"At least he won't be star struck," Rene suggested.

Elijah said, "Cyrus Merrick is from Pointche, but after school he hit it big. He already has a painting in the National Gallery, and he's barely thirty."

"I heard," Rene said glancing around and lowering his voice slightly, "that Avery Dolyn paid nearly fifty thousand for _Lake Before Midnight_."

"Do you know what I could do with that much money?" Elijah asked, appalled.

The conversation turned to compensation, the pay rate for teaching work, and something about the cost of a certain mirrored paint that made Iain's brain release a cloud of static. This kind of stuff had always floated past him. He'd been helping manage his mother's appointments and the family finances for years, and he had done a very few light jobs himself - blessings, mostly, for new and currently unhaunted homes - but he had no idea how to have an opinion on the commercial value of paintings.

Iain put his arm through Elijah's and leaned against his side. "Drinks?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry."

Turning toward the refreshment table meant they were facing the stairs. The staircase wound along the side of the room and up to a long, wide second floor landing.

A blonde woman in a burgundy gown stood at the top. Her hair was pulled up. Even from across the room, it was clear to see she was beaming. That must be Temple Dolyn, Avery's sister and the other host for the evening. She was talking animatedly to a man next to her.

Not Avery. They'd walked past Avery on the way in, and he had blond hair like his sister. The man next to Temple had long black hair he'd swept to one side of his face. He wore a dark blue vest that shone with some kind of brocade and a black shirt underneath. He had one elbow set on the balcony railing and his chin rested on his fist. If he was smiling at anything Temple was saying to him, it was too small an expression to make out. Iain didn't see why Rene had been so worried about getting caught staring.

Then Temple touched his shoulder, and Cyrus Merrick glanced at the center of the room.

Iain nearly tripped. It was a good thing he still had his arm through Elijah's. It kept him upright. He looked down and inhaled deeply, trying to focus on what Elijah and Rene were talking about. Which, thankfully, did not involve Iain getting caught staring.

Under the vest and shirt, Cyrus had a lithe build that suggested he did some kind of dancing or sport aside from all the painting. There was at least one earring in his ears, a chain that had glittered when he'd turned his head. Engraved and enchanted earrings were popular with people who didn't do magic on their own. If you couldn't perform magic, you bought something created by someone who could. Usually jewelry carried good luck or focusing marks. Small things like that. Iain knew enough sigils to tell at a glance what most people were hoping to gain from their charms.

Cyrus also had very dark eyes, and Iain would've sworn Cyrus looked straight at him.

But that was stupid. Cyrus Merrick had no reason to know who Iain was and even less reason to look at him in the middle of a crowd.

***

A smooth voice told Iain, quietly: "I'm going to be rude."

Iain startled just enough to make his drink slosh in his glass. He reached up with his other hand to catch the edge of the glass, and he took a deep breath as the wine did not spill over the rim.

Next to him Cyrus Merrick smiled, lips pressed together.

"Sorry," Iain said, mentally fumbling. His eyes briefly snagged on Cyrus's - that look was so much more, within arm's length, than it had been separated by a staircase and half a ballroom - before he tore his attention away to scan the room.

They'd bumped into some people Rene knew, and the conversation had gotten esoteric enough Iain could hardly follow it. The caterers had started putting out appetizers and he'd gently disengaged himself from Elijah's side to go have a few bites and find a new drink. Now neither Elijah nor Rene were anywhere in sight and Iain was alone. Had been alone. He'd made his way over to one of the walls in an attempt to get a better look at everything. Had been wondering when dinner would start and how many more pictures Elijah's parents would be expecting.

Cyrus said, "I don't believe you know me, but I think I know you."

"Oh?" Iain didn't think that seemed rude. Impossible, but not impolite.

Cyrus nodded. He took half a step closer to Iain, and when he looked around the room it wasn't the way Iain had been. Cyrus wasn't trying to spot someone. He swept the room like he was making sure no one had spotted him. Fair enough, Iain guessed. Cyrus and the blonde woman, Temple Dolyn, had been swarmed with people the second they'd come down the stairs together.

Iain was focusing on that instead of how if he shifted his weight, he could bump his elbow against Cyrus's. Or how nice Cyrus's outfit looked up close. Or the way the corner of his mouth lifted in another smile when he looked back at Iain, apparently satisfied they weren't being watched. He stood in front of a tall window. Behind him the sky had gone dark with twilight, any stars hidden behind the stormclouds.

"I'm good with faces. Remembering people. Spotting resemblances," Cyrus explained. "It comes with the trade."

This time when he looked at Iain, Iain had the distinct feeling of being appraised. It was surprisingly … not unpleasant? Cyrus was dressed like a star Fate had plucked from the night sky and Iain had to be a cloud in comparison, but there was something about the way Cyrus looked over him that felt personal.

Then Cyrus asked, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you Igraine Howell's eldest?"

The pleased warmth building in Iain's face burst. He could feel it drain away, and it took him too long to bring a smile to his face to replace it. Long enough that it had to be obvious. Cyrus opened his mouth, lips probably parting with an apology for the mistake, but Iain interrupted him. He didn't have a wealth of practice at being appraised by handsome men, but it was literally his job to represent the Howells. He should have known better.

"Igraine Howell's only," he clarified. And before Cyrus's puzzled look could go further he added, "My mother was one of eight. If you toss a rock in Saint Bethjons, you'll hit a Howell cousin."

Cyrus raised one eyebrow. "Are there any in particular you'd like me to aim for?"

Iain laughed and immediately tried to smother it with a hand over his mouth. His mostly-full drink threatened to spill, again, and as a waitress walked past with a mostly empty tray he thanked her for taking it from him. The only thing worse than acting like he was in a love story would be to spill wine all over himself. Or, worse, all over Cyrus.

"Please, if you recognize any of my family the next time you're in Saint Bethjons," Iain said, struggling not to laugh again at the almost smug expression now on Cyrus's face, "don't make them the same offer."

"I'd hate to offend anyone."

"You'd start a _riot,_ " Iain clarified. He couldn't keep himself from grinning when Cyrus, caught off guard, barked out a laugh of his own. He could do this. He couldn't flirt, he was a terrible flirt (if he wasn't, maybe he wouldn't have been free to go on a fake date with a childhood friend), but he could talk well enough when the subject was family and business. "We all love each other, of course, but the Howells didn't rise to prominence by passing up free opportunities."

"Who said I was offering for free?" Cyrus asked.

Iain sighed. "Of course you must know not to pass up opportunities either."

Cyrus made a sound in the back of his throat, but didn't comment.

Best to get it out of the way before it became a thing. Or before Elijah circled back from wherever he'd disappeared to and gave it away. Iain shrugged with one shoulder. He lifted a hand, palm up, in a self-effacing gesture, then let it fall back to his side. Now would have been a good moment to have wine to occupy his hands.

"I work on blessings and banishments along the the rest of my family, but the Speaking hasn't chosen me the way it's chosen my mother," he said. "If you were hoping to trade rock throwing for questioning a spirit, you should offer to hit me for one of my cousins instead."

"Ah. That's too bad," Cyrus said, and then immediately pressed his lips together and glanced out at the crowd.

"Is it?" Iain asked. He tried to sound unconcerned, but all he could think about was how much more interesting other groups' conversations must be to a prestigious artist. "I think it keeps things peaceful, myself."

"Peace is… underrated," Cyrus murmured.

He hesitated, but before either of them could think of what to say to fill the suddenly awkward silence, a voice called out from the mass of partygoers. "There he is! Cyrus, where did you get to?"

"Right here," Cyrus said, turning to their left.

Temple Dolyn appeared, suddenly, like she'd been dropped before them without having to walk there. Iain began to open his mouth to say hello, but she linked arms with Cyrus and didn't seem to notice Iain at all. It probably didn't help that she was taller than him and in heels besides. They flashed gold under the swirling hem of her burgundy gown as she tugged Cyrus away from the wall, toward a little cluster of people, all finely dressed and all watching her approach eagerly.

"I've collected the most interesting people for you," Temple said. "Everyone, this is Cyrus. Cyrus, this is…"

Iain watched them blend back into the crowd. There must have been ten people waiting for Temple to rejoin them, and in a moment Cyrus's black hair was hidden in the circle, too many people between them for Iain to even tell where the man was standing.

A tapping sound made Iain turn to his right. The window Cyrus had been standing in front of had a view of the Dolyns' backyard. It was too dark to see well, but the ocean lay beyond their yard and the beach bordering it. The wind whipped the water's surface. Waves broke on the shore, one after the other, and the tall grass living in the beach bent down to meet the sand.

The tapping had been rain against the glass. Iain reached up and touched the window. Water slid down and disappeared behind his fingers. The rain picked up, until the tapping became white noise.

Iain turned. He couldn't even see Temple's group now. He sighed and stepped away from the window. There were only so many people here. Walking along the edge of the room would take him back to his friend faster than trying to weave through it, probably.

Eventually it did. Elijah tilted his head and held his arm out when Iain finally found him again. Rene was still with him, but the person they'd been talking to when Iain left to get a snack wasn't there anymore.

"Where did you disappear to?" Elijah asked.

"I was talking to, uh…"

He hadn't told Cyrus his first name. He hadn't told Cyrus his _name._

Fate take him.

"Nobody." Iain half-smiled. That was fine. He was here for a reason, and he'd do well to remember it. He nudged Elijah a little and said, "Here, we should get Rene to take a real photo of us before dinner starts. We'll stand in front of some painting, your parents will love it."

***

Halfway through dinner Cyrus asked, "Temple, do you know everyone here tonight?"

"Do you need an introduction to someone?" Temple put her fork down even though it still had an uneaten bite of food on it. She'd seated herself, her brother, Cyrus and a couple of business people from Pointche at the center of the room. She clearly didn't mind being stared at, but it was wearing on Cyrus. He suspected the other guests at the table were a concession to Avery, who clearly didn't move through swarms of people as easily as his sister.

"Of a sort." Cyrus twisted his own fork back and forth. "We spoke, but I didn't actually get his name."

" _His_ name," Temple said, eyes sparkling. She put an elbow on the table and leaned in to smile at him. "Was it at least a good conversation, to leave you wanting more?"

Cyrus restrained himself from grimacing. "Actually, I think I insulted him."

 _That's too bad._ It had been the wrong thing to say. Cyrus had known it the second the words left his mouth, but by then it'd been too late. It was a rote response, the kind of sympathy you extended to a person upon her rejection from a new job, not a thing you said to a man telling you he hadn't inherited his family's magics.

But Temple had swept him up before he could find the right thing to say, after. And then he hadn't spotted Howell again before the dinner bell called them all to their seats. There would be a chance to look for the man in the gallery, but Cyrus wanted to be able to greet him by name. And perhaps with a little gossip in his pocket, just in case. Something to talk about.

It would be nice to make Howell laugh again. It had been a nice laugh. A nice smile.

It would be nice to have a conversation with someone who wouldn't ask him how he felt about seeing his first-ever painting again. Cyrus was getting tired of answering that it wasn't his first ever painting and he felt about the same as he usually did when his work resold.

"Oh, Cyrus." Temple rolled her eyes and gestured like she was throwing bad luck over her shoulder. Avery glanced at them, a small smile on his face. Cyrus had to wonder if this was what having a sibling was like. Or cousins, if he'd been a Howell instead of a Merrick. "Well, tell me what he looked like. I'll do my best to help you fix it."

"I can do you one better. I have a last name," Cyrus said.

"Then I'll get it in a pinch."

"Howell," Cyrus said.

"Howell," Temple echoed. "Hmm."

"Howell the psychic?" Avery asked, interrupting. He must have only caught some of the conversation. He looked surprised. Cyrus recognized the expression because it was the same frozen little smile he'd had on his face when Cyrus walked into his office this afternoon. Avery asked, "Is Igraine here?"

"One of her relatives," Temple said. "And the Howells aren't psychics, they can't Read living people. They're Speakers. They commune with the spirits of the dead."

"I didn't know you were such an enthusiast, Temple," Avery said.

"I know things," Temple said.

"But not this relative's first name," Avery guessed. The grin on his face when Temple made a rude gesture at him was genuine, even if the other guests' laughter was more startled than happy. Avery reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and drew out his phone. A moment later he said, "What did your mystery guest look like?"

"Light brown hair. Green eyes. Freckles," Cyrus said. The freckles would make for an interesting portrait, too. "He confirmed that Igraine was his mother."

"Iain Howell." Avery put his phone away. "You're welcome, Temple."

"How did you do that so quickly?"

"I went to the Howell's website. They have photos of everyone in the family who works for the business," Avery drawled. The guests on either side of him laughed. Temple heaved a dramatic sigh of her own.

The conversation turned back to other things. Cyrus tucked Iain's name away for later. The rest of the meal needed his attention, to keep up with the conversation even if he wasn't in much of a mood to finish what was left on his plate.

"Say, wasn't _Lake Before Midnight_ your first painting?" one of the other guests asked.

Cyrus forced himself to smile. He lifted one hand and shook his head. "I believe my _first_ painting is still on my mother's kitchen wall," he said, for the eighth time that night, and to about as much laughter as the first. Iain Howell's laugh was better.

"Either way," the guest said, "it'll be good to see it again, I imagine. When Avery deigns to let us." She grinned at Avery like they were sharing a joke, and Avery inclined his head without returning the smile.

Cyrus took a sip of his wine.

It would be good to see the painting again. Wouldn't it? It had been his first sale. He'd spent so much time on it. The museum where it was originally displayed still sold prints of it, still sent him the occasional check. He hadn't seen it in years. Now he'd been in the same building with it for hours, and its owner still had it hidden underneath a sheet.

The thing was, it was Cyrus's painting.

Originally.

***

By the end of dinner, the storm was close enough for thunder to cut through the noise of the crowd. It rumbled and promised that before long it would be directly overhead. Temple joked about having people sleep on the floor, with tablecloths for blankets, if any of their guests didn't feel comfortable trying to make it back to Pointche on their own. Avery joked back that he didn't think the catering company had brought that many tablecloths.

Cyrus excused himself from the table as plates were cleared away. He glanced around the room as he left, but wherever Iain Howell was seated, it wasn't nearby. Cyrus left the room without speaking to anyone. He turned right instead of left, away from the first-floor restroom and toward the stairs at the other end of the hall. None of the other guests stepping out of the ballroom noticed him walking the opposite direction.

The upstairs hall led to the gallery. The ballroom was situated in the middle of the house, on the first floor, but the gallery was in the right wing and up a short staircase.

In the upstairs hallway, the storm was even louder. There was no swarm of conversation to mute it, no ballroom to swallow it up. These windows looked out onto the front of the house. Lighting lit up the front drive, lined with cars, and the street out front. There were no other houses in view, but even if there had been, it wouldn't have mattered. It was raining too hard for anyone outside to see anyone walking through the upper hallway of the Dolyn house, no matter how brightly lit.

Cyrus didn't even look over his shoulder. He just walked straight there. Avery had talked about it at dinner, and Temple had shown Cyrus around. Even without having toured the gallery it was still easy enough to find. The Dolan house was large, not a maze.

 _Lake Before Midnight_ stood on an easel in the middle of the gallery.

The lights were off. Cyrus didn't turn them on, but he did pause in the doorway until lightning lit the room, illuminating the white sheet covering the painting and a clear path to the easel. The artwork would be hung on the wall eventually. It could've been hung already, but dramatically revealing a painting by pulling away a sheet didn't work as well when the canvas was on a wall.

Cyrus did not dramatically reveal the painting. Putting the sheet back over it would be difficult for one person alone, probably. Instead all he did was peel the white cloth away from the front and duck his head beneath so he could see the art when the next bolt of lightning brightened the room.

It would be his first look at it in ten years.

Just lightning. The sound of rain on the gallery's few windows. Cyrus and the work that had made him famous.

"Huh," he said, at last.

Then the knife - long, slender, silent - slid between his ribs.

A careful hand cupped his shoulder and gently lowered Cyrus Merrick's body to the floor, so he didn't crash and alert anyone to what was going on. Cyrus's forehead pressed down against the wood, but his body stretched across the narrow rug that ran from one end of the gallery to the other. He drew in a breath and the hand on his shoulder pressed down. Cyrus exhaled. His breath fogged briefly on the polished floor. After a few moments it faded. Seconds passed, one after another. His breath didn't come back.

Rain tapped against the windows. Louder than Cyrus's last breaths. Louder than footsteps leading into and out of the gallery.

The rug would be stained beyond repair, but some things couldn't be helped.

***

Iain knew something was wrong before they'd made it halfway up the staircase to the gallery.

He had drunk far more water than wine, but only realized he'd clutched at the stair railing when his knees threatened to give. It lasted a spilt second, just long enough for Elijah to press a steadying hand against Iain's shoulder and keep him from wobbling. Iain had enough time to think how strange that was. The other guests streamed around them, continuing up the staircase as Iain turned to glance over his shoulder, laughing awkwardly.

His laughter frosted in the air.

Elijah's brown eyes widened. Iain drew in a sharp breath, and the cold cloud of air in front of his face dissipated before anyone else noticed.

"Don't breathe," Elijah hissed, and shoved Iain up the last half of the staircase.

It was a long stretch to make on the space of one breath. Luckily there was an open door at the top of the stairs. A small half-bath. Elijah shoved him inside and yanked the door shut behind them without checking to see if it was occupied (it wasn't) or whether anyone behind them wanted in (no one knocked, at least). Even before the door had closed, Iain had exhaled his spent breath - it formed a small, weak cloud in front of his face - and sucked in a gasp to follow. He latched onto the sink, and his next exhale fogged up the small oval mirror hung above the taps.

"Why is this happening now?" Elijah asked. His voice was low and anxious, but his hands were gentle when he rested them on Iain's shoulders. He'd known Iain since they were children, and he'd been witness to more than one of the Howells having similar reactions.

It had just never been _Iain's_ body heralding the presence of a ghost.

Iain breathed out again. His lips were cold. Why had his mother and his cousins never spoken to him about how cold their lips got, when this happened? He glanced up long enough to catch Elijah's face in the mirror, his mouth creased and worried behind his beard.

"I don't know," Iain said, dropping his head.

Mirrors were bad luck in moments like this. He didn't need his decisions compounded back at him as he scrambled to deal with whatever was happening.

"Why does this usually happen?" Elijah pressed.

For a brief moment Iain felt like he was on the ferry again. His knees weak. His stomach sloshing. It was tempting to press his cheek against the cool porcelain sink. Then it was gone, and instead of the unsteady grip of his own body, Iain was overcome with the sound of wind whistling past the window outside. The storm was rattling the trees in front of the house. It would be so hard to make an excuse now, to duck out without anyone noticing. No one would go into this storm until it had the chance to spend some of itself.

He gripped the sink with both hands and locked his knees. Steadied his breath. Now that the initial hit had taken place, the dramatic effect of his breath freezing in the air was starting to fade. Magic had made itself known to him and now began to ebb away.

It was information Iain only had from books and observation. He'd done blessings, he'd orchestrated banishments with tools his family crafted themselves, but he'd never spoken to a ghost on his own. The only spirits he'd ever seen had been summoned by other people. Other Howells. Never himself.

"Iain?" Elijah asked.

"It's… It's normal. For a given definition." Iain swallowed. He didn't lift his head, didn't dare look at himself in the mirror again. "This happens when an agitated spirit has been trying to make itself known, but hasn't been able to find an outlet. If it finds a suitable medium, it can… It's hard to explain," he fumbled. He squeezed his eyes shut as the ferry-rocking feeling swept him again, just as a wall of rain slammed into the small bathroom window. He could taste rain on the back of his tongue. His lips were still cold. "It's either like the spirit transfers its energy to the medium in an attempt to gain acknowledgment, or like an open medium acts like a… like a whirlpool, drawing in all available energy around themself."

For a moment the only noise was their own breaths and the rain against the window. As soon as the seconds had stretched far enough to feel fragile, lightning illuminated the window, and a brief moment after thunder followed.

Behind it, Elijah's strained voice asked, "Does this mean you're a medium now?"

"I don't know."

"Is there a ghost here now? Are the Dolyns haunted?"

"I don't know."

"Did someone die?" Elijah's voice broke at the end of the question.

Iain opened his mouth to protest that yet again, he did not know. It wasn't lightning or thunder that interrupted but a rapid knock at the door.

They both jumped, and when the voice on the other side said "Please hurry!" Iain squeezed past Elijah to open the door. The two of them had to squeeze past the ashen-faced man leaning against the wall, who promptly burst into the restroom and ducked his head into the sink, nearly sobbing for breath. A woman with an apologetic look on her face darted in behind her friend, rubbing small circles into his back.

"I'm sorry, he just panicked, and he didn't want to run downstairs," she told them.

She reached up with one hand and turned the warm tap on so water splashed gently against the back of her friend's head. The man's pale hair darkened as the water soaked it, but his breathing began to slow. Iain noted that the woman took care not to look in the mirror.

The woman said, "It's just awful. I hope the investigation service can make it here with the storm. It took us forty minutes from Pointche, and I heard the wait staff talking about roads flooding."

"Terrible," Iain agreed, his head spinning. He latched onto the bathroom door before Eljiah could say anything and said, gently closing the door, "We'll give you your privacy."

The hallway was not empty. But they were still nearly at the staircase, and most people were clustered around the other end of the hall. Iain looked down the stairs and saw more guests in suits and dresses walking back toward the dining hall, some with steadier gaits than others. None of the other doorways on the hall were open. The closest to privacy they could get was Iain nudging Elijah a few feet down to huddle by the next door in the hall.

Elijah opened his mouth.

"Yes, I think someone is dead," Iain whispered, rubbing his hands over his face.

"What do we do now?" Elijah asked.

"Wait for investigation services to get here."

Elijah gave him a look.

Iain gestured, bringing both his hands up without actually throwing them over his head. He didn't want to attract any extra attention. "What do you want me to do? You know I've never channeled a spirit before."

"But someone died! They just dropped in the middle of the party!" Elijah bit down on his tongue when Iain motioned for him to quiet down. "They tried to make contact with you."

"It might have tried to make contact with me," Iain corrected. "It could be the other way. It could be that the spirit ran past us and I just…"

"Funneled the energy?" Elijah's eyebrows knit together, skeptical. His whisper was low and vibrating with anxiety. "But why now? Why would right now be the first time your magic's ever opened up, if there wasn't a ghost deliberately reaching out?"

Iain took half a step back so he could touch his hand to a doorframe, brace himself a little. It felt like the floor was threatening to give way underneath him. Not the way it had on the ferry, but close. Iain's body felt like it was swaying with the storm instead of ocean waves.

"If a ghost was trying to talk to me, I'm sure it would have said something else by now," Iain whispered.

Next to his hand, the door handle turned. He jerked back, startled, turning around so quickly that Elijah had to grab his arm to steady him again. But no one was coming out of the room to run into them. The door pulled away from the frame and swung open to a dark room. Lightning lit the windows briefly through a gap in the curtains. It was a small sitting room and wholly unoccupied.

Iain looked at his friend. Elijah's eyes were huge and round.

"It could have been the wind?" Iain tried, hopefully.

Inside the empty room, the light clicked on.

Elijah grabbed Iain's arm and shoved him inside.

***

Cyrus had been dead long enough for the blood to cool on the floor. He could tell because the pool of it underneath his body had grown tacky at the edges, although of course when he walked through it, nothing stuck to his shoes.

He didn't understand how long it had been. There were no clocks on the wall in this room. None of his jewelry included a watch. The rings on his fingers, carved with charms for focus and surety of purpose, were useless to him now. The long earring in his left ear, multi-stranded, had tangled itself in his fall. The tiny, meticulously carved sigils for clear-headedness couldn't serve him like this. He should have worn charms for luck. He should have carried a medallion for safety around his throat.

But … No, he hadn't fallen. His earring was tangled, but he hadn't fallen. There had been no pain. Just a sudden bright assuredness that everything was about to be over. A firm, gentle hand putting him down on the floor.

Leaving him there.

Rain struck the windows.

Cyrus tried to breathe, but his body was still. There was a solid mass in his throat and no air in his lungs. He pressed his hands to his neck and felt himself waver. When he tried to look at himself - himself floating above himself, transparent and unreal - it was hard to focus. He frayed at the edges. There were rings on his hands, small shining bands of translucent silver, but no magic to help him.

Magic couldn't help him. He tried to breathe again, wanting oxygen, wanting his head to clear, but there was nothing. He knew who he was - He knew who _Cyrus Merrick_ was, it was him, he had to remember that - but he couldn't make the imitation of his body respond the way he wanted. Magic couldn't help him here.

His jewelry was on a corpse.

The gallery abruptly flooded with light. Electric, not lightning. The rain kept up its assault on the windows all the same.

There was a brief second when Cyrus so sure it should've blinded him that he _was_ blinded. A fraction of a moment where he couldn't see and flinched away from the sudden light. But when he opened his eyes… No. When he told himself to turn and look at the gallery entrance, his eyes didn't need to adjust. He wanted to look there, so he was.

Temple Dolyn had her hand on the lightswitch. Avery stood behind her, his expression pinched and grim, and several more people crowded in the doorway behind them. From halfway into the gallery Cyrus could see Temple's lips part and Avery reach up to touch his sister's shoulder.

Then Temple screamed, from the bottom of her lungs, and Cyrus flung himself through her and Avery and a dozen party guests just to get away from the sound of his own murder.

Halfway down the stairs he passed through a point so cold he felt himself shatter.

One second he was there, and the next he was in a thousand tiny shards, the weight of his death smashing through him.

The next thing Cyrus was aware of was himself in pieces at the bottom of the stairs. His name hovered at the back of his head, and the memory of wooden brushes in his hand. He tried to taste air on his tongue and only remembered the sharp smell of paint. But that was better. That was stronger. Memory pulled him back to wholeness. Guests streamed around him, stepped through him, and he pulled memories into himself like breaths in living lungs until he was strong enough to right himself again. Again it was impossible to know how much time had passed. It seemed unimportant. Time couldn't fix him.

He was still transparent, but it was too hard to think of himself without a body. He struggled to his feet and up the stairs one by one. It wasn't until he'd reached the second floor that Cyrus had any idea what he'd been dragging himself toward.

That cold point. It glowed now. It hummed with warmth, and Cyrus stumbled toward it, blinking, trying to hold the memory of himself in one piece long enough to understand what he was looking at.

"Yes, I think someone is dead."

Howell.

Iain. _Iain._

It was almost like being struck again, but this time Cyrus felt his thoughts snap back into shape. It was Howell. It was Iain, whispering to someone. The friend who'd brought him along to the party? Iain rubbed his hands over his face, and his friend said something in that same whisper. They were talking… They were talking about Cyrus, but they didn't know it.

Cyrus felt something click in his head. He said, "Iain. Iain, it's Cyrus."

Iain said, "It could be the other way. It could be that the spirit ran past us and I just…"

His friend asked, "Funneled the energy?"

Cyrus groaned. He spun in a circle, and pulled at his long hair, and tried to think. Saying "Iain!" in a louder voice didn't do anything. Could he throw himself through Iain again, the way he'd moved through everyone between him and the bottom of the stairs? Iain felt warm, now, not cold, and there was a faint green light against his skin the same color of his eyes - But that didn't mean Cyrus wouldn't shatter if he tried getting a message through that way.

Iain leaned against the door frame.

Nothing. Cyrus couldn't think of anything. He looked at Iain and felt a tight spiral in his chest. The urge to scream built up inside him. He hissed, "Iain, look at me," and got absolutely no reaction.

Cyrus needed to get them out of this hallway. He needed them not to walk away. It was a need stronger than the impulse to scream. There was nothing Iain could do to put Cyrus back in his corpse - No, no, don't think about that, a body still on a gallery floor - But Iain could see him. Iain could talk to him. He'd said he couldn't, but he had felt Cyrus, hadn't he? He'd felt something. Something so obvious even his friend knew it was happening.

The friend looked and sounded anxious. His eyes kept darting around the hallway, but no one was paying them any mind, and Cyrus doubted anyone else could hear them either. "But why now? Why would right now be the first time your magic's ever opened up, if there wasn't a ghost deliberately reaching out?"

"If a ghost was trying to talk to me, I'm sure it would have said something else by now," Iain whispered.

Cyrus leaned forward and forced the door handle down. The effort almost whited out his memory. He felt the edges of himself blur, and he fell forward, the door swinging open.

***

"So what do we do now?"

"I don't-"

"I know you don't know," Elijah groaned. He dropped into one of the chairs and let his head fall back, so he was staring up at the ceiling. "But you can't tell me there isn't a ghost, or a spirit, or whatever. Doors don't open on their own. Lights don't turn on by themselves."

Iain breathed in through clenched teeth. He heard his mother's voice telling him to relax and clear his head. He wished he could hear her voice saying something useful. Surely she had told him something useful by this point in his life. All he could dredge up was _Think things through, Iain_ and _They just want someone to listen to them, Iain._ Not a single practical thing about what to do when the magic suddenly seizes you after you've spent your entire adulthood assuming it wouldn't.

He found the other chair and lowered himself into it. There were two, and a small end table next to each. An overhead light and a reading lamp on one of the tables. Between them hung a small painting, a kid's shoe breaking the surface of a puddle in a rainstorm. The chair underneath him was upholstered in fine gray fabric and not even a sliver comfortable. Iain couldn't imagine sitting in it long enough to read.

"What does your mother do when this happens?" Elijah asked. He knew enough to ask the question but not enough to know why it was wrong.

"I don't know."

Elijah made a face.

"I'm tired of saying it too, Elijah," Iain promised.

This had only happened to Igraine once. As a young teenager. Iain's mother had carried her magic with her for decades now. When it'd become apparent Iain wouldn't be doing the same, the advice on how to manage it had stopped coming. Now he could remember nothing she'd told him.

Well. Almost nothing.

 _I promise it doesn't hurt,_ Igraine had told him, once. Sitting on a couch while Iain knelt next to her and shook. He remembered watching her breath frost in the air. She'd cupped his hand in her cheek, smiled, and told him that everything would be all right. She hadn't mentioned feeling pierced or like her legs had given out. She hadn't told him how cold it made you, to have a spirit pass through your body.

What had she done? He'd been ten, at most. He remembered how pale she'd gotten, how quickly she'd sat down. The way her eyes had shifted color when she'd started speaking for the ghost. Not how she'd gotten its voice into herself.

Elijah shifted his weight, digging in his pockets for his phone. "Maybe we should call her. Before people start…"

Iain looked up. "What is it?"

"My mother sent me a message," Elijah said. His voice was flat.

It took a second for Iain to process that. He managed half a smile. "Did she figure out we aren't really on a date?"

"Someone at the party posted an update. My aunt knew I was here. She saw it and sent my mom a link." Elijah looked at his phone for so long that Iain's smile faded away.

Iain felt like he was on a ledge."Was it… Rene?"

Elijah blinked. Looked up from his phone. "What? Oh. No, it wasn't Rene," he said, which let Iain relax a little and sag back against the chair. Elijah frowned and turned his phone around so Iain could see the bright logo of a sharing site, plain text next to an unfamiliar person's icon. Elijah said it out loud, even though it was right there to read. "Cyrus Merrick is dead."

The lights shut off.

Iain surged to his feet. In the darkness, he tried to lunge forward, to the lightswitch. He made it one step forward before cold gripped both his wrists.

The lights came back on, and Elijah's phone was on the floor. Elijah had his hands on the arms of his chair, and his lips were pressed together. He looked like he was trying very hard to be cool with his childhood friend's unexpected ascension to magic. There was no mirror in here to confirm, but Iain had the feeling Elijah pulled off the look better than Iain himself did.

Cyrus Merrick stood directly in front of Iain. His hands wrapped around Iain's wrists. He was so translucent Iain could see straight through him. Even his long black hair, pulled to the side of his face, only barely obscured the room behind it. The only part of Cyrus that remained opaque were his dark eyes, wide and frantic with fear.

"Please tell me you can see me," the ghost begged. "Iain. Please, you have to see me."

Iain stood there, frozen.

Panicked spirits spelled trouble. The first thing Igraine would do here would be to reassure Cyrus. Get him to calm down. A newly-deceased ghost could dissipate at any moment once the shock wore off. Or it could settle into a haunting. Iain needed to be smart about this.

Instead he asked, his voice scratchy, "How do you know my name? I didn't tell you my name."

"He's here?" Elijah asked. He reached up toward the space in front of Iain, but jerked his hand back at the expression on Iain's face. "Sorry, sorry. No touching the invisible ghosts."

Invisible. Elijah couldn't see or hear Cyrus. Whatever magic poured through Iain to allow him to connect to Cyrus like this, it wasn't strong enough for anyone else to pick up on.

"I figured it out," Cyrus told him. He leaned forward. "Iain, you have to help me."

Iain's chest cracked. It felt like someone had reached inside him and twisted, a sharp pain beneath his ribs. He wanted to look away but his eyes were locked on Cyrus's. Cyrus, desperate and pleading and just inches from Iain's face. The ghost's body moved like it breathed. Iain knew that had to be a memory. Memories could be overpowering. Memories could tether spirits to the mortal world for as long as the ghost kept them fresh.

"I can't fix it, Cyrus," Iain whispered.

Cyrus's grip tightened. Iain winced, but Cyrus didn't notice or didn't care enough to let up. A cold, dull ache slowly crept up Iain's wrists and along his arms. The sharp pain of grief and defeat burrowed further into Iain's chest. Barely a moment into his first Speaking and he had already failed the spirit.

"You have to try," Cyrus insisted. "You can't just say you can't."

"I'm not a… a healer," Iain said, biting his tongue.

He'd barely stopped short of saying _necromancer._ He might be botching this thing entirely, but he wasn't stupid enough to bring up necromancy with a new ghost. That was how fools got themselves possessed.

Cyrus groaned.

"Is he asking you to bring him back to life?" Elijah asked.

Cyrus groaned again. This time it was so low and pained it almost sounded like the storm wind, rocketing past the window.

Iain glared, and Elijah clamped his mouth shut.

"Why don't you go and try to find out what happened?" Iain suggested, with a pointed shake of his head toward the door. The less moving parts in this the better.

Elijah hesitated but slipped out, shutting the door behind himself as Iain called out, "Subtly!"

***

Alone. Lightning flared somewhere outside the house, brightening the window. The light passed through Cyrus. It didn't even catch on the slender chains hanging from the earring in his ear. Thunder followed it a couple of seconds later, swallowing the sound of Iain's heartbeat. He waited for the rumble to die out before he wet his lips and spoke. He tried to pull from a lifetime's worth of observation, and two minutes standing shoulder to shoulder in a ballroom under scattered chandelier light.

"I'm sorry. This is a very difficult thing to process. I know it's confusing. But nothing else has to change right now, not if you don't want it - Shit, Cyrus, you're hurting me!" Iain gasped through his teeth and flinched back, although the fierce grip on his wrists meant he didn't move.

Startled, Cyrus let go of him. The second his fingers loosened from Iain's skin, he vanished.

Iain dropped down into a chair. He gulped air down. For a brief moment he contemplated opening the window for a breeze, but rain streamed along the glass, and he didn't want to have to explain flooding the little sitting room to anyone. So he put his elbows on his knees and folded his hands over the bridge of his nose, breathing deep, trying not to grimace at the sharp pain where Cyrus's fingers had dug in so hard. When he could breathe steadily he sat up and rubbed his hand against his left wrist.

"Are you still here? I'm sorry. I know you didn't mean to hurt me," he said, and hoped the doubt didn't bleed into his voice.

The rain continued, but Cyrus didn't speak. Iain lowered his hands. Uneasiness brewed in his gut. This wasn't right. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. He should have had Elijah call someone in his family from the beginning. Trying to guide Cyrus all alone, even for a minute, had been a mistake.

Iain touched his jacket pocket where he'd tucked his phone away. Igraine would almost certainly pick up, if she called. If she was online at all, she might have already seen rumors or news about Cyrus. She knew where Iain was. She might call him herself… 

"Cyrus, if you can hear me, please come back," Iain said. "I don't know if I can fix what you want me to fix, but you don't have to be alone."

A chill touched Iain's shoulder. He shuddered, breath abruptly cool in his lungs.

Cyrus stood next to him. One hand was tentatively curled around Iain's shoulder. His face was pinched in concern, but relaxed a little when Iain turned and Cyrus realized they could see each other again. He started to take his hand away and the vision of him flickered. Iain said, "Wait, don't," and reached up as if his hand wouldn't pass through Cyrus's arm (which, of course, it did). Cyrus went still. Iain exhaled, and his breath was warm again.

"If you," Iain started. He stopped, lifted his chin. His ears burned. "If you stop touching me, I can't see or hear you anymore."

"Oh," Cyrus said, blinking.

Without the anxiety of trying to be seen stamped onto his face, he looked roughly the same as he'd looked standing above the ballroom, when Iain had fallen into staring. His hair was slightly mussed, but his jewelry and clothing appeared as it had when he'd… when he'd still been alive. The dark blue brocade vest didn't catch the light, and neither did his jewelry. Up close and holding still, Iain could tell that the small sigils carved into Cyrus's earring were for focus. One was a ward against distraction.

"I would've expected something for creativity," Iain said, immediately cringing. "Sorry."

Cyrus touched his free hand to his ear. He pressed his lips together. Iain imagined that the flash of a smile was wishful thinking, but he latched onto it as a good sign all the same. Cyrus said, "I like to imagine I have creativity enough on my own."

"Yes, that was stupid," Iain agreed. He shook his head. "I'm sorry. Again. I haven't done this before."

"I remember," Cyrus said. His eyes were bright.

"I have seen it done. I won't leave you. I know that the transition is confusing, that this is a lot to adapt to in just a few minutes," Iain said, the words tumbling out of him. He felt like he was trying to convince a skeptical client, except in this case the consequences fell straight on Cyrus, and not a neglected ghost. "I can't imagine what you must be going through. This was so sudden."

The mirth faded from Cyrus's expression. "Yes."

"We don't have to inform anyone you don't want informed. I won't share the news like anyone else may have. We don't do that," Iain said.

Ghosts often demanded that messages be put forth, but few would want that to happen on their fresh death site. The Howells had instilled better than that in Iain. He already regretted that anyone had posted about Cyrus's death at all.

"That's what you need to help me with," Cyrus murmured. His hand briefly tightened on Iain's shoulder, and when Iain couldn't stop himself from wincing, Cyrus made his hand relax. It took visible effort.

"I… What?" Iain stared at him.

He pictured the ballroom before everyone sat for dinner. How crowded it had been. How easy it had been to lose Elijah and Rene after stepping away for just a moment. The way Temple Dolyn had floated above it all, first on the stairs above the room, and then when she'd whisked Cyrus away to join her group. Was Cyrus saying he wanted Iain to … to tell all those people what had happened? Beyond what they already knew?

"I am not the first choice for public announcements," Iain said, hesitantly. His business was with individuals and small families. He didn't perform for crowds.

"Iain," Cyrus said, staring at him. "Someone murdered me."

Iain opened his mouth.

Cyrus disappeared, along with the cool touch on Iain's shoulder. A moment later Iain could see him again. Cyrus had knelt before him and placed a hand on Iain's arm, near his wrist. It was very politely a place for Cyrus to touch Iain that wasn't Iain's knee.

Iain closed his mouth. His ears were burning again. "But you… You look perfect," he said. His face flushed. "Forget I said that."

Cyrus raised both his eyebrows. He looked like he was trying to decide how irritated to be. "Is this how you talk to all your ghosts?"

"I don't have ghosts."

"You do now," Cyrus reasoned. His head was tilted to one side, and his mouth pressed into a smile, but his expression was grim. The lightness in his voice belied the seriousness in his eyes. His gently wrapped around Iain's arm now, instead of just lying across it, and Iain didn't think it was his imagination that Cyrus looked all the more present for it. Not solid, but less translucent. Less like a stray wind would send him away.

The window for an easy passing on was slipping by them. No one deserved an easy passing more than a murder victim.

Cyrus hadn't stopped looking at him.

"Do you remember what happened?" Iain asked.

"I had gone into the gallery to look at my painting. I wanted to see it alone without people watching me. I don't… I don't remember entering the gallery, or looking at the painting. I know I was standing in front of it. I didn't feel what happened, but they lowered me to the floor." Cyrus bit the tip of his tongue. "Why did you tell me that I looked too… pristine?"

The word choice was a kindness Iain chose to accept. He strained to pay it back. Be professional. Be calm and matter of fact. If he panicked, Cyrus's anxiety would absolutely come back. "Usually if someone dies in a violent way, it stays with them. Until a spirit is more settled, they can't change their appearance." He looked at Cyrus's hand on his arm. Swallowed. "Do you think you could have been poisoned?"

"I don't know how I'm going to show you this," Cyrus muttered, softly.

Iain didn't get a chance to ask what he meant. Cyrus moved his hand to cover Iain's and twisted their fingers together.

"Stand up," he said.

There was a chill pull against Iain's fingers. It wasn't nearly enough force to make him move, but he rose to his feet anyway. Cyrus took a step back and raised his hand, gripping just tight enough that Iain wouldn't slip away. Then he twisted halfway around, with their hands held above their heads. For a strange and tilting moment Iain felt like Cyrus was trying to show him a dance move. One he would never manage to pull off in front of a crowd like tonight's party. One that showed off how lean Cyrus's figure was, and how well his suit fit… 

His suit, with an open slice in the back of his vest, and a blood stain covering half of his back.

Iain winced. For a split second their hands came apart as he took a step back, but Cyrus was clearly unoffended. He didn't wait for Iain to sit back down, he simply curled a hand over Iain's elbow, so they were standing face-to-face again.

"I saw my own body," Cyrus said. "Someone followed me to the gallery. The storm was so loud, I didn't hear them coming up behind me."

"There are a hundred people here," Iain said. His head was spinning. He shifted his weight, trying to steady himself. It would be bad to fall over, or sit again. Cyrus needed him to hold it together. "More. All the waitstaff, and whoever else the Dolyns hired for the night. It could be anybody."

"Not anybody," Cyrus said. "Unless your boyfriend disappeared on you for a while."

Iain blinked. "I don't have a boyfriend."

Something happened to Cyrus's face. He locked it away before Iain could get a read on it.

"Your plus-one, then," he said, cheerfully. It sounded off, but Iain couldn't say how.

"Elijah should have been back by now," Iain said, more to himself than to Cyrus. "We should go find him. Maybe he found something out. Maybe people are talking, or someone turned up with a knife…"

Cyrus rolled his eyes.

"It could happen," Iain said. He shook his head. "Elijah never disappeared. No one at our table did. Do you know anyone here who might not have liked you? Aren't you from Pointche?"

"I am, but I'm not in the habit of making enemies. I paint pretty pictures and make nice to people with deep pockets," Cyrus said. "Your family talks to dead people. You're way more likely to have enemies than I am."

"I don't think it's a slight on your character if you have an enemy," Iain grumbled. "Anyway, my family are the ones who talk to ghosts. I'm the one who makes people's houses feel better."

Cyrus looked at Iain, down at himself, and back at Iain.

"I have talked to _one_ ghost," Iain said.

It was probably inappropriate to feel satisfied at the brief smile that flickered over Cyrus's face.

Correction: It was definitely inappropriate to feel satisfied. Iain shoved it away and tried to focus on the cool touch of Cyrus's hand through his sleeve instead. Living people didn't feel cold to the touch. Cyrus wasn't alive anymore. Finding Iain had distracted him, and now the idea of finding his murderer, but the reality of his situation could come swinging back at any moment. And then only Fate knew what would happen. So many things could happen when a new ghost felt the shock of their mortality. A ghost could hurt a person, if he put his mind to it.

Iain looked away from Cyrus and cleared his throat. "What about Temple Dolyn? You were with her for a while, weren't you?"

"I don't think Temple is capable of this kind of thing. Also, I'm positive she liked me. You don't murder people you like."

"You might if you had a compelling reason."

"Temple invited me. You don't invite your victim to a party along with a hundred people who could compromise your alibi," Cyrus argued. He started to lean back, caught himself, and slid his hand up from Iain's elbow to curl around his upper arm. "It can't be her."

"It could be someone who was mad at her, though," Iain speculated.

"How dare she copy my outfit, I'm going to ruin her party with murder?" Cyrus asked, his voice dripping skepticism.

Iain gave him a look. "Someone had to have done it, Cyrus."

It felt stupid, like he was trying to puzzle out a story instead of find a real life reason a ghost was clutching at his arm, but he didn't know what else to do. His mother would tell him to wait for authorities. Elijah wasn't back. Iain was too nervous to try calling, in case his phone ringing messed up whatever he was trying to do. And if he left this room, it would be ten times harder to stay in contact with Cyrus. The longer he stayed, the longer he could put off figuring out what to do about that.

"Temple likes parties. She likes people. She invited me here because she thought it would be fun, and she even paid me. She's… _nice._ I didn't see anybody so much as look at her sideways," Cyrus said, and then twitched, like he'd bitten into a lemon.

"What?"

"It's probably nothing." His fingers dug into Iain's shirt slightly, pulling at the fabric.

Iain waited.

Cyrus clenched his jaw. Looked at the window, then back. "My being here was a surprise for everyone. Including Avery Dolyn," he said. "Avery's the one who lives here, but Temple planned the party."

"Temple's using her brother's house to show off her art?" Iain asked, frowning.

"No, it's his art. He's the collector. He owns more of my paintings than I do at this point. But he was… He wasn't excited about me being here. I got the distinct impression he doesn't appreciate the unexpected."

Iain shut his eyes for a second. It was next to nothing. The kind of thing he could tell investigational services, when they arrived. But he couldn't give Cyrus the impression that it was enough to act on. Iain didn't have the skill to stop a ghost bent on hurting a person. Not without resorting to banishment, and banishment couldn't be taken back.

"It's the same problem. Almost. Avery didn't invite you or the… the potential witnesses, but he knew they were here. It would be foolish to try this in his own home," Iain said, quietly. A bad argument. Anyone would've had the same problem with witnesses. He sighed and opened his eyes.

Cyrus wasn't looking at him. He was looking over Iain's shoulder.

Iain looked behind him, almost expecting to see Elijah back in the room. All he saw were the two chairs, the lamp, and the little painting on the wall. The kid stomping through a puddle in the rain.

"Did you think of someone else?" Iain asked, looking back at Cyrus.

Cyrus didn't look away from the painting. "That's hanging in my room."

***

"What?"

"That painting is next to the bed in the guest room here. I made it."

"You made a copy of a painting?" Iain sounded confused.

His pale eyes were fixed on Cyrus's face. Cyrus could feel the weight of him staring, but he couldn't make himself look away from the painting.

"I painted it years ago. I only ever painted the one. I didn't have prints made. I sold it to someone I knew from school, and then I moved and I didn't hear about it again until I came _here._ " He felt his hand curl at his side, his nails pressing against his palm.

"Cyrus," Iain said.

A thought swirled at the back of his mind. Paints almost mixed to the perfect color, but not quite.

Iain shifted in his grip. "Ease up," he said, just a shade past gently. "Are you sure it's the same painting? Maybe someone made a similar one."

"It's the same painting," Cyrus insisted. "I know my own work. I know that's mine. And the one in the bedroom is, too. That's not a print, that's a painting. Someone made that by hand."

"Maybe Avery is trying to learn?" Iain guessed.

"No. He's a businessman. He was with us all through dinner, and he didn't mention making art himself once." Cyrus made a noise in the back of his throat. The urge to scream spiraled in his chest again, a tight coil beneath where memory of his body held a copy of his heart. "This doesn't make any sense. None of this makes any sense. Avery has at least ten paintings of mine, maybe more. He paid so much money for _Lake Before Midnight_ and he was so unhappy to see me, why-"

The warmth of Iain's magic suddenly flared hot. He hissed, "Cyrus, you're hurting me again."

Cyrus yanked his hand away from Iain's arm.

Ian sagged.

Cyrus looked at his palm, half expecting the skin to be scalded, but it looked fine. The heat vanished almost immediately. It didn't feel like his face flushed, either, but he did feel a tightness across his face, an unhappy and shameful tension. He raised his head, intending to apologize. Expecting Iain to look angry, or scared.

Iain's eyes were unfocused, and he shook his head. "Cyrus, I can't see you."

"Fate take it," Cyrus snapped. He pressed both hands to his face, groaned, slid his hands up into his hair. This wasn't working.

Thunder rolled. It sounded further away than it had a few minutes ago. Maybe the storm was finally abating.

Cyrus reluctantly dropped his hands. Iain was standing in the same place. Some of the color had been sapped from his skin. He bit his lip, and his eyes darted around the room. Cyrus nearly wanted to leave him here. He could go find Avery, listen in to him, come back and report. Do it all without getting so upset that he grabbed onto Iain like a stress toy.

Iain straightened up. He held out one hand. "Cyrus, please."

If he left, no one would see him. No one could hear him. His body would be on the floor, and that corpse would be the whole of him.

If he left, Iain would go find his friend. He wouldn't be here when Cyrus came back.

Cyrus reached out and very, very gently cupped his hand against Iain's. He waited for Iain's eyes to focus on him, and then he murmured, "I'm sorry. I won't put my hand on you like that again."

"I don't know why there's two copies of your painting. Or why Avery was unhappy you were here, or why Temple would invite you if she knew Avery didn't like surprises," Iain said, patiently. He didn't look angry. Or afraid. Not afraid of Cyrus, anyway. His fingers curled so their hands wouldn't slip apart. "We can't do anything yet. We have to try to find more out."

"No one is going to talk to you," Cyrus said.

"No," Iain agreed. "No one's going to confess to me. But you need to understand that they banish ghosts who deliberately hurt people. _I_ banish ghosts who hurt people. I've done it before."

Cyrus grit his teeth. He nearly pulled his hand out of Iain's grip. Fuck, fuck. He really was dead. No one could see him and if he lost control the one person who did would end what was left of him. Iain's magic was still warm, invitingly so, but he saw how that could be a trap.

"Not me, that's not what I meant," Iain said, to whatever expression had risen to Cyrus's face.

Cyrus stared at their hands.

"Promise me you won't go charging after someone, no matter who it is, because I don't want to be ordered to do that to you," Iain said. He hesitated, then stepped a little closer. His voice dropped. "I don't want to do that to you at all. Promise me you'll stay calm. Please don't make me have to choose, Cyrus."

It was easier to nod than to speak.

Iain let out a breath. "Okay," he said, softly. He looked at the door. "We have to fix this … This not-seeing-you problem. I can't walk around the house or go find Elijah if I lose you every time I have to let go of your hand."

Cyrus decided to stick to simple statements. Anything else was dangerous. He might say something stupid, like how he thought if he could turn a door handle he might be able to pick up a knife, or how he desperately needed to be something that wasn't all dead and how touching Iain meant there was something to him that wasn't just a corpse.

He said, slowly, "What do you need me to do?"

"If I had my mother's kit, I would draw a connecting sigil. But I didn't bring anything with me. And I don't carry Speaking charms. It's never…" His voice trailed off, and he straightened, fidgeting. "If we can't use a sigil or a tool, the only thing I can think of is to try to swap some of our magic."

"I don't have magic."

"You do now," Iain told him. He frowned. "This is complicated. I always had some magic, it was why I could help a house, but the Speaking has … It's never chosen me before. My magic feels different now."

"It feels warm," Cyrus murmured. He shrugged when Iain did a double-take. "It does."

Iain digested that for a minute. "When my family is working together, sometimes they share magic. For rituals or difficult communications. It's an effort of will." He paused. "If you can feel my magic, then maybe you should treat it like a physical thing. Thoughts shape magic. It's how a spirit can manipulate the physical environment."

Cyrus thought of his memories whiting out, when he'd put all of himself into opening the doorknob. How difficult that had been. He looked at Iain and tried not to grimace. Opening a door was a reflex. Doing something he'd never done before might break him.

"Think of something warm," Iain said. He sounded almost eager. Like this was going to be easy. "Think of taking something warm."

Fire. Cyrus almost flinched. He couldn't reach out to fire.

He could almost think of sunlight, streaming in through his studio windows, but that was insubstantial. He couldn't capture it in his hands any more than he could pick up a flame. He could copy it onto canvas, but that wasn't the same. It wouldn't be a part of him. Paintings were his thoughts flung out into the world. The opposite of what Iain was telling him to do.

Iain said, "I'll concentrate on something cool. Heat rushes into cool spaces. It should work if we can both focus."

The lightning was less dramatic, and the thunder farther away. Rain still beat against the windows. Cyrus could picture the beach outside. The ocean may have flooded up to the fence by now, or stretched out beyond the wood to the Dolyns' yard. It thundered in the distance and the rain beat down, louder than the only breath in the room. The storm was cold. The room was cold. Cyrus was cold, where his body lay, at the other end of the hall.

The only warmth here was Iain.

Cyrus wanted to be more than a memory. Or a body, cooling on the floor. He wanted Iain to see him even if they weren't touching.

Iain looked at him, hopeful.

Cyrus bent forward and gently pressed his mouth to Iain's. Iain's lips were warm, under his, and they parted when Iain breathed in, a sharp inhale of surprise.

For a second Cyrus closed his eyes. He remembered what it was like to kiss someone with his eyes closed. He could make his world dark, narrow it to the nearly-hot flare of Iain's magic, the press of his lips against Cyrus's. He remembered what being kissed was like, and he shivered slightly as Iain's hand tightened on his, so solid Cyrus didn't think he could pass through Iain's body even if he tried. Even if he wanted.

Iain shivered too, and made another startled, breathy sound.

Cyrus reluctantly leaned back. Iain looked at him, and before he could speak, Cyrus let go of his hand.

Then he immediately walked over to the window. If it hadn't worked… 

Iain twisted, his head turning to follow. Ha.

"That's not what I meant!" Iain said, staring at him. His eyes had gone very wide, and his face was faintly red. He'd bitten at his lip again and it almost looked like he had truly just been kissed.

Cyrus almost wished it hadn't worked. That Iain couldn't see his face. He forced a nonchalant shrug and brought both his hands up in a sweeping gesture, all-encompassing of his ignorance. He wanted to grin. He wanted to do it again.

What he said was: "I'm not the one who knows about ghosts."

Oh, yes. Iain's face was definitely red now. "Do you think my entire family goes around kissing every ghost they talk to?"

"Not with that attitude," Cyrus drawled, and snorted when Iain choked.

For all his protests, he _had_ kissed Cyrus back.

They left the little room together. Neither of them stopped to turn off the light.

***

Iain should have known it wouldn't be easy.

Finding Elijah turned out to be simple. That should've been the tip off that everything after would be complicated. They made it down the stairs and right up to the ballroom door just as Elijah was leaving to come find them. Most people had come back downstairs and flocked back to the ballroom, with its supply of drinks and waitstaff now earning overtime, and most importantly with more chairs than any other room in the building.

They walked down to the center hall of the house, away from the ballroom, where fewer people had a chance of overhearing their conversation. The entry lead to each of the wings of the house and a center staircase, leading forward and back on itself to climb up to the second floor.

"Rene told me people have been trying to leave, but the roads are flooded out. Someone got in their own car and ended up coming back." Elijah shook his head. "A few people tried calling taxis but the services won't come this close to the shore until the water starts to recede. Anyway, I don't think investigational services is going to be happy if people start leaving."

"Where are the Dolyns?" Iain asked.

"I don't know. Rene wasn't at the front of the group, but he said after they opened the gallery door, Temple started screaming. Avery locked the doors and whisked her off somewhere, I guess." Elijah glanced over Iain's shoulder.

Iain half-turned, expecting to see Avery or Temple stalking toward them. The hall was empty.

Since Cyrus was supposed to be right behind him, that wasn't reassuring.

"We fixed it so I can see Cyrus even if he steps away from me," Iain said. He kept his voice quiet even though they were alone, and when he looked back, Elijah was scanning the entryway without turning his head. "He said the painting of his in that room was identical to a painting in the guest room."

"That's weird," Elijah said. "Why would you buy a copy of a painting you already owned?"

"He said he never authorized any copies," Iain said.

He didn't know why you would own two copies of the same painting. The house was big, with a lot of rooms, but Avery clearly had the money to buy whatever art he wanted. Surely he hadn't just run out of things to hang up.

Elijah frowned. "So someone made it. Why would you _make_ a copy of a painting you already owned?"

"You wanted to practice your painting skills? He said Avery owns the house and didn't say anything about painting, but…" Iain took a few steps toward the edge of the entryway, where he could glance up the staircase. No one was lurking up there, which was good except that it also meant Cyrus hadn't decided to walk up the stairs.

"What are you doing?" Elijah asked.

"Looking for Cyrus."

Elijah stared at him. "You lost the ghost?"

"I did not lose him, he went off on his own," Iain said.

"Well." Elijah made an incomprehensible gesture. "Find him. Use your magic."

"Thanks, that never would have occurred to me."

"Why would he walk off?"

Iain hesitated and lowered his voice to a faint whisper. Elijah had to lean in to hear him. But Iain didn't want to be surprised or overheard. "Cyrus thinks there's something suspicious about Avery because of the paintings. I convinced him to calm down, but I'm worried about what he might do if we find anything… conclusive." He sighed. "I hope investigational services gets here soon."

"The storm is letting up," Elijah said. It was partly true. The lightning and thunder had abated, mostly, even if the rain was still coming down. Surely the roads wouldn't keep the service away for that long. "You said he got upset about that painting. Maybe he went to go look at the one in the guest room."

The grand staircase loomed above them, and both wings of the house stretched out on either side.

"How would we ever find it in this place?"

"We can't if we don't start looking." Elijah squared his shoulders and went into the next wing, walking awfully confidently for someone who wouldn't be able to see Cyrus even if he walked straight through him. "Come on, you're bound to sense him at some point."

Iain reluctantly followed. He was glad to get out of the open entryway, at least. It would be a lot harder for someone to sneak up on them if they weren't standing under the stairwell. The next wing over had more doors than the one they'd already walked through, which he guessed made since, since the ballroom was on the other side. More art hung between the doors. Iain was starting to wonder if Avery Dolyn actually enjoyed art or if he bought it just to spend his money on something. There didn't seem to be rhyme or reason for what was displayed. Aside from owning multiple pieces of Cyrus's, every painting looked different from the next. But what did Iain know about art?

Any thoughts he might have been able to dredge up on the topic vanished when Elijah stopped and gently rapped on a door.

"What are you doing?" Iain hissed, cringing when Elijah opened the door and looked into what turned out to be a storage closet for cleaning supplies.

"Looking for Cyrus."

"What if you knock on a door and the Dolyns are in there?"

Elijah shrugged. "We'll tell them you're a psychic from a family of psychics and tonight's events have greatly upset you."

"We're not psychic, we don't Read people," Iain protested. Elijah smirked at him and he groaned softly under his breath. The next door turned out to be a small gym. Of course there was a gym in the house, what mansion didn't have one. "Fine, fine. But if you get us caught I'm going to pretend to pass out and you had better catch me."

"I will probably be able to catch you," Elijah said.

Cyrus piped up from behind them, "Is leaning into being a medium really a good idea when my murderer is still in the building?"

Iain jumped, bumping his shoulder into Elijah's chest. Elijah grabbed his arm, apparently afraid he'd suddenly decided to practice passing out. Behind them, Cyrus stood in the middle of the hallway. He raised his eyebrows as Iain took a deep breath and explained to Elijah that he'd come back and what he'd said. To be fair, it was a good point, and one that Iain hadn't considered before.

Iain didn't think he was about to get less jumpy.

"On the other hand, if you made a scene in front of the rest of the guests, we could use you as bait," Elijah said.

Iain slowly turned to face him. "We could do what?"

"If I were a murderer, I would be really worried about someone who could talk to ghosts being trapped in a murder scene with me," Elijah reasoned, oblivious to Cyrus walking around to stand at his shoulder.

Which meant he also didn't see the thoughtful expression on Cyrus's face, or hear him say, "I can see that."

"We're not using me as bait! For a murderer!" Iain snapped.

"I wouldn't let anyone get that close to you," Cyrus said. There was no consideration left on his face. He met Iain's eyes and stated it like a fact.

Iain pressed his lips together. He was sure his face was getting red, because Elijah was giving him a confused look, but he couldn't bring himself to look away from Cyrus. It felt about the same as meeting his eyes across the ballroom had, except ten times worse, because Iain could still feel the cool press of Cyrus's mouth against his. It had made the memory of his hand digging painfully into Iain's arm vanish in an instant.

"Cool, cool, I can't hear this part of the conversation," Elijah said. "Ask him where he disappeared to."

Cyrus said, "He doesn't have to get you to ask me, I can hear _him._ Tell him I was looking for Avery's office."

"He says he was looking for Avery's office." Iain frowned. He managed to stop thinking about being kissed for a moment, and the memory slipped away, freeing his brain up for other things. "Why were you looking for Avery's office?"

"Clues," Cyrus said. He pointed at a door a little further down the hallway. "I need your help. You looking through things is going to be a lot faster than me doing it on my own."

"We can't fish through Avery's things," Iain said.

"Actually that sounds like a good idea. Which door is his office? Oh, thanks," Elijah said, when Cyrus walked over and opened the door on his own. Cyrus flickered out of view for a moment after he did, like it had taken something out of him to make the effort, but Elijah walked into the office and Cyrus had followed before Iain could protest or ask if Cyrus was okay.

He really should have known this wouldn't be easy.

***

It took the wind out of Cyrus every time he moved something. Opening the door made him sluggish for a minute, but it had been the fastest way to get through the bickering and move everyone into Avery's office. Now he stood by the closed curtains and watched Iain and Elijah rifle through Avery's things. Elijah had definitely taken to it more than Iain, who kept biting his lip and looking at the door, tense, expecting at any moment to get caught.

Cyrus had meant what he said. He could open a door. He could move things. He wouldn't let anyone bring a knife as close to Iain as someone had brought one to him.

"I don't think we're going to find anything," Iain said, shutting the last drawer of the desk. "I don't even know what we're looking for. We don't even know if Avery's the one who did it."

"I barely know anyone here. Some of the artists, but only professionally. None of them have a reason to do this," Cyrus said.

"What could Avery possibly gain from killing you?"

Cyrus shut his eyes. He heard Iain sigh. Well, he wanted to sigh too. "I don't know why you're defending him."

"I'm not defending Avery," Iain said. He walked around the desk and stopped just in front of Cyrus. "I'm not. I just don't want to rush into things and miss something important."

Cyrus wasn't being fair. There was pain in Iain's eyes, and fear in the way he held himself, stiff and jumping at every little sound. (A lot of them, since the wind and rain were still striking the window.) The warm feeling of his magic kept flickering, like a candle flame, every time he tried to brace himself for being caught. He kept looking at Cyrus from the corner of his eye when he thought Cyrus wasn't looking, too, and he looked more afraid then than when he looked at the door, anticipating Avery storming in.

Cyrus didn't know how to tell him not to worry. He wasn't going to give Iain a reason to banish him.

Iain gave up on waiting for a reply. He turned to Elijah, who had started inspecting a bookcase in the corner. "It's not like art instantly becomes more valuable upon an artist's death, does it?"

"I mean, kind of? If you die in a newsworthy way, it gives you a bump," Elijah said, which Cyrus of course had known but made Iain cringe. Elijah crouched and ran his fingers over the bottom of the books, but if he'd been expecting a secret passage to open, that wasn't the trigger. "If the Dolyns wanted to, they could probably resell _Lake Before Midnight_ for more than they bought it for. At least if they sold it in the next couple of months."

"That can't be it," Iain said, appalled.

"Some people will do anything for money," Cyrus said.

"Why sell a painting you just bought?" Iain asked. He must not have expected an answer, because he didn't wait for either of them to speak. His eyes went unfocused and he asked, "Why make a copy of a painting you already own?"

Elijah said, "That could be for money too."

Cyrus went cold. It was the first moment since connecting with Iain that he hadn't felt warm. The radiant heat of Iain's magic was just gone. Cyrus looked down at his hands, half expecting to see himself fading away.

But he was still there. As whole as he could be when his body was transparent. He looked up and Iain was still there.

"What?" Iain asked. If he could tell that Cyrus felt like the storm had reached in through the window and struck him dead center, it didn't show on his face. He looked between Cyrus and Elijah. "Making copies to sell them? And your mansion has so many rooms you hang up a second one because you forgot about the first?"

"Making forgeries to sell them," Elijah said. He scratched at the side of his face. "And, yeah. I guess you could forget you already had one up. If you weren't paying attention."

"If you were stupid enough to display a forgery at a party the artist had been invited to," Cyrus said, quietly.

Iain's eyes widened. He dropped down onto the edge of Avery's desk. His magic still had to be working. The connection still had to be there. If it wasn't, then he'd be reacting to nothing instead of reeling from Cyrus's pronouncement.

Elijah moved toward them. "What? What did he say?"

" _Lake Before Midnight_ can't be a forgery," Iain whispered. It startled Elijah enough that he took a step back. Iain kept staring straight on, not taking notice. "To invite all these people? A whole crowd of artists? There was a professional photographer, and everyone was taking their own photos. It can't be fake."

"I was in the gallery when it happened," Cyrus said. "I know I was. I don't remember it, but I know I was looking at the painting. When I came back to myself, I was looking at my body on the floor, and it was right in front of _Lake Before Midnight._ "

Dazedly, Iain related to this to Elijah.

"If it's a good forgery, casual photographs and witnesses wouldn't be enough to disprove it. It would take analysis with the original, or high-resolution photos side by side," Elijah said. Some of Iain's anxiety was starting to bleed into him too. He'd begun to pace across the office. "You would need experts. It wouldn't be that hard to get away with. No one would look so close, not at a party, and they've been serving wine all night."

"I would be able to tell," Cyrus said. "I would be able to tell everyone."

Iain didn't repeat it. There wasn't time.

The door opened, and Avery Dolyn stepped into the office.

***

Avery looked like he'd been awake for days. His pale blond hair was mussed, there were circles under his eyes, and at some point he'd loosened his tie but not actually taken it off. He stood in the doorway, hand on the doorknob, and blinked at all three of them.

No, Iain corrected himself. He blinked at two of them. Avery wouldn't be able to see Cyrus.

"What are you doing in here?" Avery asked, baffled. He was looking at Elijah, but when he glanced back at Iain, his entire stance changed. The line of his shoulders stiffened and his grip on the door tightened. "Everyone not otherwise indisposed is supposed to be in the ballroom," he said, his voice icy.

It would have scared Iain if there had been any fear left in him to spare. As soon as the door had opened, Cyrus had edged around the room. He now stood at Avery's elbow. He was taller than Avery, and glowering down at him. The translucent form of his body picked up a faint glimmering sheen. It made Iain's stomach twist into knots. He felt a tug at his own magic and tried to reel it back into himself, but manipulating it in this way was too unfamiliar, and he couldn't get a grip.

Cyrus probably didn't know what he was doing. He couldn't know Iain's magic was seeping into him, giving him strength. And there was no way for Iain to warn him or ask him to stop.

"Well?" Avery demanded. "This is my private office. I would hate to have one more thing to report to investigational services when they arrive."

Elijah put his hand on Iain's shoulder. "We're so sorry. We were just looking for a room away from everyone else."

Iain needed to snap out of it. He flexed his fingers uselessly and looked between Elijah and Cyrus, struggling to think of a way to get them out of this room. Pretending to pass out would've worked better in the hallway.

Elijah decided to go for the strategy Iain had vetoed. "My name is Elijah Owens. This is Iain Howell." He lowered his voice and gave Avery a meaningful look. The two of them in this together, on the same side. And Iain sitting on the desk like a stump. "He's Igraine Howell's son, if that means anything to you. Tonight has been very, very difficult for him. I thought it would be best to get him away from prying eyes."

Uncertainty crept into Avery's face. He scowled, but his grip on the doorknob loosened. He took a step forward. Cyrus didn't move, but his dark eyes were fixed on the back of Avery's head.

"I'm familiar with the Howells," Avery said, unexpectedly. He raised a hand when Iain opened his mouth. "I appreciate the tragedy tonight has presented, but you can be no more upset than my sister, who discovered the body."

When he said 'the body,' the faint glow shrouding Cyrus flared once. Almost like lightning. Iain shuddered.

Whatever that was, it didn't reach Avery. He dropped his hand. "With all due respect to your background, Mr. Howell, I am also familiar with the fact that while you assist your family, you aren't personally in connection with spirits."

Fuck. Iain swallowed. How had Avery known that? Was it better that Avery _did_ know that? What should Iain say? What was he supposed to do now? What would Igraine be doing? (Besides not having gotten herself trapped in this situation in the first place. Iain would've done just about anything to hear that lecture, in this moment.)

"Being squeamish is no excuse to invade my office. Did you touch anything?" Avery demanded.

"No, no." Elijah gently tugged Iain until he was on his own feet and a step away from the desk. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Dolyn. He wanted to go outside, but the weather is so awful, and I didn't know if you had a porch."

"I suggest that you both return to the ballroom immediately. I expect to be able to find you find you there if it turns out that anything in my office has been disturbed." Avery waited for his words to sink in. Iain almost thought he was going to reach up and take Iain by the collar, just to drive the point home. All he did was wait for them to look appropriately cowed before taking two steps back.

There was a path to the door. Cyrus stood next to the doorway, his face locked in a furious mask. But of course they could simply pass through him.

"Well?" Avery demanded. "Is there anything else I need to make clear?"

"Our sincere apologies," Elijah said.

He wrapped one arm around Iain's shoulders and hustled him out of the office. They had to pass through Cyrus to get there, because Cyrus was still watching Avery, and walking through him made Iain feel cold stick to his ribs. It only lasted for a moment, but it still ached.

Iain stumbled slightly in the hall outside the door and Elijah had to steady him all the way back to the front hall and the staircase leading to the second level. In the moment it took Cyrus to decide to follow them, it felt like the entire building was threatening to turn upside down. Iain had a vision of tearing himself away from Elijah's grip and begging Cyrus to come with him, giving it all away to Avery, and having to keep his back to a wall until investigational services arrived.

Cyrus did follow, though. He pressed a finger to his lips when Iain opened his mouth, and gestured for Iain to keep going. Iain leaned on Elijah until they were at the staircase.

That was as far as Iain could make it. He freed himself from his friend's grip and sank heavily onto the bottom steps. His hands were trembling. "That," he whispered, "was too close."

"I'm sorry I suggested using you as bait," Elijah said, genuinely morose.

Cyrus knelt in front of Iain. He covered one of Iain's shaking hands with his. The shimmer had faded a little. "I'm not going to let you get hurt," he murmured.

Iain didn't pass that along.

"We didn't find anything. I don't know where else we could look, and now he knows that we're around," Elijah said. "I don't want to put you in that position again, and I don't know how many more stories I could come up with."

"If there are forgeries, I doubt Avery wrote that down," Iain said. Cyrus looked unhappy, but he didn't pull his hand away. "If we can talk to investigational services when they get here, I can request they bring in their own medium. Someone with a badge who can go on record with what Cyrus is saying."

"We should make ourselves scarce until then," Elijah said. "I know Cyrus - Cyrus, this sucks, but we tried. We just have to wait."

"Yeah." Iain stood. Met Cyrus's eyes and looked away.

The walk to the ballroom took hardly any time at all. One of the doors was propped open slightly. Quiet whispering drifted into the hall. The music that had been playing through dinner was shut off, and the only background noise was the now-distant sound of a gentle, steady rain.

If they stepped in there, a hundred people would turn to see who'd just entered. A hundred minus Avery and Temple Dolyn.

And Cyrus.

"I - I'll join you in a minute. I'm going to go splash some water on my face," Iain said. And at the skeptical look Elijah gave him, he added, "Avery can hardly yell at me for being in the restroom. I really need a minute, Elijah."

"Okay." Elijah wrapped Iain in a tight, brief hug. Iain felt his head spin and his feet lift off the floor for a split second. He hugged back, and Elijah let him go. All the interest and energy from earlier had faded away. Now he looked nearly as exhausted as Avery had. "I'm so sorry I talked you into coming to this thing with me, Iain."

"It's not your fault. Go call your parents, tell them we're fine."

"You know where I'll be," Elijah said. He stepped through the door to the ballroom.

Iain waited until he was sure no one else was coming into the hall before walking away. He went past the first-floor restroom and straight to the stairs at the end of the hall, up to the second floor. The hallway that lead to the room where they'd hidden before, and the gallery at the end of the house.

There was no one left up here. Iain stared down the hall at the closed gallery doors for a moment. Then he stepped into the tiny bathroom with its little oval mirror, avoided the sigh of his own reflection, and sank down to the cool tile floor. He put his face in his hands. A moment later, he heard a soft click. Cyrus had locked the door so no one would be able to open it.

***

"Thank you," Iain said, not lifting his hands from his face.

"Avery isn't going to hurt you," Cyrus said.

There was no proof. They hadn't found anything in his office. All they had was speculation, gut feeling, and the strange duplicate painting. At least one of those was a forgery, even if _Lake Before Midnight_ wasn't. But Cyrus was certain Avery had murdered him. Waiting to see if someone else would eventually do something about that was like waiting to see if the last of the storm would flood the house.

He'd come within a hairs breadth of trying to see if he could make Avery feel it, if Cyrus laid his hands on him, when Iain and Elijah had stumbled out of the office. Iain had looked so frantic that Cyrus couldn't bring himself to stay behind.

And there was no reason to linger in the ballroom. Avery hadn't ordered _him_ there, and no one at the party would be able to talk to him.

He lowered himself to the floor to sit next to Iain. Stretching his legs out meant passing his feet through the pedestal under the sink. It didn't hurt, but it was weird to look at. He looked at Iain instead.

"I'm not handling this well." Iain put his hands in his lap. "You should be able to rely on me. You shouldn't need to make promises to protect me."

"Try to stop me."

Iain's eyes brightened, but he didn't smile. "Do you really think _Lake Before Midnight_ could be fake? Elijah's friend Rene said it sold for fifty thousand dollars. What if we're wrong, and Avery didn't know he was buying a forgery?"

They weren't wrong. Cyrus put his hand on Iain's arm. They didn't need to touch to speak anymore, but he was trying to be reassuring. And part of him just wanted to be closer. He could blame it on Iain's magic, if he wanted to. "If Avery realized it was fake after he bought it, he would've had legal recourse to get his money back. Having me spot that it was a fake would've just bolstered his story."

"Unless he knew he couldn't blame it on the seller," Iain guessed. "But he doesn't have anyone to blame you on, either."

"The doors were all unlocked, officer, so the staff could access their trucks," Cyrus said. Bitterness seeped into his voice. He knew how parties worked, although he didn't have as much experience throwing his own as Temple seemed to. He could imagine the shape an excuse would take. "Anyone could have come in while the party was going on. I didn't even know Merrick was coming. Anyone could've followed him to the gallery and left."

"In the storm?"

Cyrus made a noncommittal sweep with the hand not clasping Iain's. "Avery has money, and there's no evidence. The knife is probably in the ocean. Or came from the caterer's and not even the Dolyns' own kitchen."

"There are mediums in the service. If you tell one the painting is a forgery, they'll have to look into it."

"If he hasn't sold the original, he could swap them back out. That's what I would do if I were him."

"He can't have had time to do that. Not with your." Iain stopped, inhaled. His hand tightened on Cyrus's. Cyrus could feel it, a warmth against his skin. "Not with your body still in the room," Iain finished.

Cyrus squeezed Iain's hand once and forced himself to stop. It was too hard to think about the gallery and what was in there. His corpse was only half of it. He had no memory of lifting the sheet covering the painting and looking underneath, but of course he remembered creating _Lake Before Midnight._ It was the first painting a buyer had taken home. Not a curator or friend or relative, borrowing or gifted one of Cyrus's works. Someone who had wanted Cyrus's art so badly they'd been willing to pay for it.

He hadn't looked all that closely at the other paintings hung around the house. Outside a museum, it had been unsettling to see so much of himself in one place. It felt like walking past mirrors. Frozen pieces of himself captured and collected. Now he wondered if any of them were real at all.

"I don't actually like these parties," Cyrus admitted. "I mostly came because Temple paid me. And it's good for talking to potential buyers. But it's draining."

"I came to this party because Elijah's parents want him to get married and he's hoping the photos will make them think he's on a date," Iain said.

Cyrus shut his eyes. He tried and failed to swallow a laugh.

"Do you think they're going to be convinced?" Iain asked, deadpan, when Cyrus looked at him.

"I think you can use this as an excuse about why you didn't work out."

"There's an idea," Iain said.

Cyrus wet his lips. Iain's eyes snagged on his mouth and then he looked away, face pink, his eyes skimming along the wall up to the mirror above the sink. It was too high to see their reflections in without standing back up. (And, of course, Cyrus wouldn't show up at all.)

"I meant to apologize about earlier," Cyrus said. He absently traced a line along Iain's hand with his thumb. "When I said it was too bad you didn't have magic like the rest of your family. I was going to apologize, when we were up in the gallery. It was reflexive. I didn't know what to say, but I shouldn't have said that."

"You wanted to talk to me again?"

"I asked Temple if she knew your first name so it'd be easier." Cyrus didn't mention being annoyed when Temple had said Iain had to be here as someone's plus-one. That didn't matter anymore, for multiple reasons, and there was no point in bringing it up. "I'm afraid that's how Avery knew who you were. But maybe it's better that he has reason to believe you can't have seen or spoken to me."

"Maybe." Iain was quiet for a second. "I wasn't insulted. You didn't have to apologize."

"I still shouldn't have said it."

"I would've been glad that you did," Iain said, tentatively. He'd leaned his head back against the tile wall, and his eyes were still aimed up toward the mirror. Pale red stripes streaked his face, under the freckles. It was cute. "If it meant that you wanted to talk to me again."

Cyrus smiled, his lips closed. "I don't know. I probably would've hit you with a line. Like I said, I'm not very good at these parties."

"What, did it hurt when I fell from Heaven? That kind of thing?" He was watching Cyrus from the corner of his eye.

"All right, you can give me more credit than that." Cyrus half-turned and brought his free hand up. He shouldn't be doing this, but Iain was holding still for him, and he wanted Iain to look at him like this. Focused and uncertain but not unhappy. Anticipating.

Cyrus had made it his job to take pieces of the world and split them off. For the moment, that's where they were.

He cupped his hand against the side of Iain's face. Ran his thumb over Iain's cheek, tracing the line of his blush. "Something about painting you, of course. You'd have to sit still for it. I wouldn't want to miss the freckles."

If Cyrus had been whole, it would've been a perfect moment. Iain's eyes were bright. His skin was warm against Cyrus's hand, and beneath that, Cyrus could feel the warm rush of magic. Tempting enough to sink into. That was what made him slowly bring his hand away and lower it to his lap. If he'd still been who he was supposed to be, he could've kissed Iain again. For a much better reason than the last time.

Iain swallowed. Cyrus could hear it, and that was tempting too.

"I'm not an artist, it would've been a new line to me," Iain said, laughing awkwardly. He was still blushing. He put his free hand against his face and ran his fingers through his hair.

"What do mediums say when they hit on people?" Cyrus asked.

"This is all pretty new to me. I haven't had time to think of any lines. House blessings don't really lend themselves to flirting."

Cyrus should change the subject. He should let go of Iain's hand. There was no excuse to hold onto him, anymore, and he was being selfish.

"I don't know," he mused. "You could say that blessings work best in the morning, and you like to start in the bedroom."

Iain laughed into his hand. His hand curled, and his fingers slipped to tangle up with Cyrus's. He asked, "Would that have worked on you?"

"Hard to say. It's not my house."

"You don't have a studio here either."

"I always pack a sketchbook," Cyrus said.

"I like a prepared man," Iain said, and immediately blushed deeper when Cyrus started laughing. "That is not what I meant, Cyrus. Your mind is in the gutter."

"You went there first," Cyrus pointed out.

Someone knocked at the door, and they both froze. Neither of them said anything. Then Cyrus realized he could say something, because the person on the other side wouldn't be able to hear him. Fate forgive him for thinking this way, but there were some advantages to his current state.

He squeezed Iain's hand. "Don't say anything yet," he said, and stood.

There was another knock, more tentative this time. Fighting off the still-present instinct that all it would get him was a head injury, Cyrus stuck his head and shoulders through the door.

A shocked moment later, he leaned back.

"Excuse me? I'm - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop. But I think perhaps you and I should talk."

Iain's eyes were wide. He put his hands down on the floor. In a quiet whisper he asked, "Is that Temple Dolyn?"

"Yes," Cyrus said. And for good measure: "She doesn't have a knife."

***

There was nowhere to go. If Temple was in on it, she could just bring Avery back here, and there was only so long Iain could stay locked in a tiny bathroom. Cyrus confirmed that Avery was still in his office - which meant an extremely awkward, and extremely long, minute where Iain was on one side of the door and Temple was on the other - and Iain decided that if he was going to talk to her, it was better to do it when her brother wasn't around.

She looked different. It took him a second to realize it was just that she'd wiped her makeup off, and was no longer wearing any jewelry. She gave him a tiny, pinched smile when he opened the door and took a big step back, so he had space to step out of the bathroom.

"Ms. Dolyn," he said, awkwardly. She wasn't standing between him and the stairs. If he needed to, he could run.

Cyrus settled next to Iain, half a step forward.

"Nobody calls me that," Temple said. She clasped both her hands together and looked down the staircase. No one was at the bottom. "I overheard you and your friend. After… After finding Cyrus, Avery took me upstairs to my room. It took me a while to get back on my feet. When I finally did, I came out to the stairwell and you were at the bottom talking."

"Oh," Iain said. He'd forgotten to worry about that.

"She isn't going to do anything to you," Cyrus said. He didn't bother lowering his voice.

Iain fidgeted. What exactly had they talked about on the stairs, the second time? He was sure they hadn't edited much. It'd been so easy to see that Avery hadn't followed them down the hallway.

Temple looked at him. She looked desperate. "Is it true?" she asked. "Are you really talking to Cyrus?"

It would have been a lot more subtle to not immediately look at Cyrus, but Iain couldn't help it. He wasn't used to subterfuge or to talking to people no one else could see. This was a skill his family had never needed to teach him. Cyrus grimaced and moved a little closer to him, still that half step ahead.

"I don't know if I should be talking to you, Ms. Dolyn - Temple," Iain corrected, at the look on her face. He felt the tips of his ears get hot. "I'm sorry. I just. I think maybe I should go back downstairs and stay there until inspectional services arrive."

"It's my fault," Temple said. She sniffed. Iain blinked, and Temple rubbed at one of her eyes. "It's my fault for inviting him. Please, please. I don't understand what else you were talking about, I know you said something about my brother, but I can't stand this. Cyrus never would have been hurt if it hadn't been for me. I thought we were going to have a grand time, and instead…"

Iain winced. "It's not your fault," he said.

Cyrus looked incredibly uncomfortable. He shuffled so he was actually standing a little behind Iain. "She's not the one who stabbed me," he whispered, but Iain did have the presence of mind to know that replying 'I don't think telling her that would help' would actively worsen the situation.

"I wish I had never agreed to help Avery with this." Temple locked her hands together behind her neck and took several deep breaths. She looked like she should be sitting down, but there was no chair in the hall. "I should have cancelled it when the weather forecast came out. Or held it in town. But my brother works so hard, and he was so proud of acquiring _Lake Before Midnight._ I thought I was helping."

The worst part about this was that it almost felt familiar. The more Temple spoke, the more she sounded like one of Igraine's more sensitive clients. Things like this happened in tragedies. The Speaking helped his mother thread situations like this. Iain had stood by silently and watched her handle it. He'd poured tea when he'd needed to, and brought tissues. He had neither of these things now, and Cyrus grabbed at the back of his shirt when he moved, but Temple looked like she needed something and Iain couldn't just stand there. He very carefully reached up and put his hand on her shoulder.

Temple shook for a moment. She took a few more breaths, and then she let her arms drop to her sides. She blinked until her eyes were clear. "I heard you say something about forgeries."

"Uh." Iain took his hand away and resisted the urge to stick it in his pocket. "We don't… Have to talk about this."

"No. We do. This is my party. I'm the host, I brought everyone here. Do you." She stopped and looked back and forth. Still no one downstairs, and still no visible Cyrus (who did not try to meet her eyes). Temple rephrased. "Why do you think there are forgeries? I assume you're talking about Cyrus's work?"

"I don't know if this is a good idea," Cyrus said in Iain's ear.

But what else was he going to do? If he waited, Temple might change her mind. She might decide to side with Avery. Or Avery might come looking for her, and Iain didn't want to be caught again while Temple still didn't know what was going on.

"I'll show you," Iain said.

The room where he and Elijah had hidden earlier was only one door down. No one was in there, and the light was still on, just like they had left it. Outside the window it did look like the rain had let up considerably. The wind was softer and there was no flash of lightning to greet them as Iain showed Temple inside and gestured at the painting of the kid stomping through the puddle.

She stared at it. "But that's hanging in the guest room. That's why I chose that room to put Cyrus in."

"That's what made Cyrus think something was wrong," Iain said. It was an admission without stating outright that something had happened, that the Speaking had decided it needed him now. "He said he remembers that he went to the gallery so he could look at _Lake Before Midnight_ alone."

Cyrus told him, "At least stay closer to the door. Don't block off your escape route."

Iain obliged, and Cyrus didn't relax, but he did settle down. The sheen of borrowed magic had dulled to a faint glow. He was letting some of it drain back to Iain, then, even if he didn't know that was what he was doing.

Temple kept staring at the painting. Eventually, she turned to face Iain. Her eyes were focused, her mouth turned down at the corners. One of her hands had curled into a fist at her side. "Is the painting in the gallery a forgery?"

Iain looked at Cyrus, who pressed his lips together. He looked back at Temple. "He can't remember looking at it. He can't remember what he saw."

Temple lifted her chin. "We should go look at it then, shouldn't we?"

***

Cyrus felt worse the closer they got to the gallery. It was a physical thing, as insubstantial as he currently was. 

He would have been dragging his feet if Iain hadn't insisted on walking next to Temple. He didn't like Iain being that close, and even though Iain kept looking over his shoulder to make sure they weren't being followed, he didn't like that the gallery was at the end of the hall and only had one exit. It would be harder for him to protect Iain there. He could feel it. There was a cold knot at the center of his chest, and what warmth he had drained steadily out of him as they walked up to the gallery doors.

"Something is wrong," he said, in Iain's ear.

Iain glanced at him from the corner of his eye. He held out one hand, and Cyrus took it, surprised to find himself suddenly being pulled along. He would have been tripping if he'd tried to walk like this, in a body. But Iain was able to bring him down the hallway with no issues. Except for the growing cold.

"It's okay, Cyrus," he said. Temple looked at them for a moment, then turned to looking through a ring of keys she'd pulled out of her pocket. Iain explained, "It's proximity to the… the place of your death. It's hard. You need to stay tethered to me, and it'll be fine. Just don't let go, okay?"

Cyrus breathed in through his teeth. He couldn't protect Iain if he couldn't move.

Temple unlocked the gallery doors.

"Are you sure the service won't be upset that we went in here?" Iain asked, as she pulled the doors open.

Temple let out a breath. "Of course they will. They'll have to deal with it. We'll be very careful not to touch Cyrus, but we need to know this. If… If my brother is involved, I need to know. I need to see it for myself." She reached inside, turned on the light, and gestured for Iain to follow. As soon as he was in, she shut the doors behind them. Smart. It wouldn't stop Avery from entering, but it would give them warning that he was coming.

Cyrus's first thought was to wonder when someone had bothered to remove the sheet from _Lake Before Midnight._ Surely Avery wouldn't have been trying to show the painting off after the discovery of Cyrus's body.

Then he realized the sheet had been pulled off because it was draped over his body.

He tightened his hold on Iain's hand. Iain said something soft and soothing that went in one ear and straight out the other.

The sheet covered up his body and some of the blood on the floor, but not all of it. Looking at it made Cyrus feel like he was fraying around the edges. He clutched at the most recent memory he could: Sitting on the floor, Iain's face cupped in his hand. It was physical and real and he could feel Iain's magic next to him, hear Iain breathing, and it was just enough to keep Cyrus from falling apart. He couldn't see his body but he could tell that was what the sheet was hiding. When he thought about breathing, he felt a solid mass in his throat again, empty lungs starting to scream.

Warmth flooded him. It started in his hand and spread up through his wrist, stretched along his arm and across his chest. The memory of his lungs gave way. The mass in his throat dissolved. He thought about Iain's skin under his hand and turned his head to see Iain watching him, anxious.

There was no blush on Iain's face now. Just a soft, almost colorless glow around his head. No. Not colorless. Pale green, like his eyes.

Cyrus leaned against Iain's side. As long as he didn't let go, he was anchored here.

It still felt like the greatest effort of his life to make it across the room. They couldn't stand right next to the painting, because his body was in the way, but Cyrus could get close enough to look at it better.

"Take all the time you need," Iain said, quietly. He sounded like he meant it. He sounded like he wasn't worried about Avery finding them at all.

In the end, it only took about three minutes. Cyrus wondered if that was how long it had taken the first time.

"I didn't make this," he said. If he'd been alive, his mouth would have been dry. But he was dead and it was as easy to speak as it was to think. "It's very, very close. But if you look at the water around the moon's reflection, the color isn't mixed quite right. I had hurt my wrist while I worked on this. I remember how hard that part was to paint. The brush strokes aren't right. In the real painting, you'd be able to tell I was having trouble holding the brush."

Iain didn't relate all of that. He did say, "Cyrus says this is wrong. He says he didn't make it."

Cyrus looked over just in time to see Temple's eyes fall shut. She swayed, and Iain gingerly reached out to touch her shoulder. She shook herself and forced her posture back to perfect straightness. Her chin came up again, and she opened her eyes. The color was gone from her face, but her eyes were still sharp.

"Thank you," she whispered. She sounded like her mouth was dry. "I think we should go back to the ballroom now."

They were halfway down the stairs when Cyrus finally felt like his legs were working again. Like he was taking actual steps instead of simply being dragged along. Temple walked ahead of them, her head held high, and Iain gripped the railing on his way down.

Cyrus clenched Iain's hand tight. "This is foolish," he said. "But I wish I had been able to see the painting again. The real one."

Iain squeezed his hand back.

***

Temple didn't storm off to confront her brother. Everyone did turn to look at them when they entered the ballroom, and Iain saw some people looking at him quizzically, but no one was about to challenge Temple's delayed presence. Iain spotted Elijah and Rene in the corner, and Elijah stood up when he saw them. He was obviously confused, but he waved for Iain to come join them.

A few people stood and told Temple how sorry they were as they crossed the room. She returned the condolences with ones of her own. It slowed her down, so Iain reached Elijah before she did.

"Sorry," he said. "I got, uh. Waylaid. Hi, Rene."

"Hi," Rene said. He glanced to the space next to Iain. It was obvious, if you looked closely, that Iain had his hand hanging in space. Rene diplomatically said, in phrasing that wouldn't make anyone within earshot turn to look at them, "I'm very sorry for what happened."

Cyrus made a noise in the back of his throat. He'd seemed off-kilter ever since they'd gone back to the gallery, but there was a familiar brightness in his eyes when Iain glanced at him. He said, "I would like to get past the stage where I have to listen to people apologize to me for my own death."

Iain translated that as, "Thank you."

"Does your family always edit what they hear?" Cyrus asked.

Iain sat down without answering that. Cyrus wedged himself into a chair next to him. They weren't holding hands anymore, but Cyrus's arm was looped through his. He murmured, "I think we should probably keep conversation to a minimum until we have more privacy."

The look on Cyrus's face suggested that he thought no one being able to hear him constituted a fair amount of privacy, but he didn't actually say anything.

"Why were you with Temple?" Elijah asked. "When you didn't come back, I went to look for you, but you weren't downstairs."

"Sorry. I should've tried to text you. I went to the upstairs bathroom because I thought nobody would come knocking. Cy… We were just talking," he said. He didn't know whether the people at the next table over could really hear him, but he didn't want to risk it. The last thing he needed was to get swarmed by the entire party. "Elijah, when we sat down in the stairwell, Temple overheard us. She was upstairs and she could hear us talking."

Elijah leaned back in his chair. "Oh."

"Talking about what?" Rene asked.

"Some stuff that doesn't seem right," Elijah said, as vaguely as possible.

"It's complicated. But Temple wanted to know more," Iain said. He checked, and Temple was still several tables away. Someone had one of her hands clasped between his own and was saying something into a very patient expression on Temple's face. Iain said, "We went to look at a painting. Then we came straight here. I don't really know what she's thinking."

Elijah crossed his arms on the table and watched Temple for a moment too. "Was that the best thing to do?"

He probably thought they'd just gone to look at the painting of the puddle. There was no way he could guess they'd broken into the gallery. Or, well, had Temple unlock the gallery. Iain said, "I don't really think I had much of an option."

"She's coming," Cyrus said, quietly.

It meant that Iain wasn't surprised when Temple took the other empty chair at the table. She must have guessed Cyrus was in the one next to Iain. She gave them all a small smile, then poured herself half a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. The caterers must have refilled all the pitchers before retreating to the kitchen for a real break, because Iain didn't see any of them.

"I'm Temple, obviously. I know Iain, and I know I spoke to you both on the phone at some point, but I don't think we'd had time to meet before dinner."

"Rene," Rene said. He nodded at her and she inclined her head in response. "I'm so sorry for tonight."

"It wasn't my loss. But it is terrible." She took a sip of her water. "I intend to wait here until investigational services arrives, and I would like not to wait alone. Most of the people here are Avery's friends. May I sit with you?"

None of them were going to turn her down, of course.

There were no clocks in the room. Every once in a while Iain snuck a glance at his phone. After some initial awkward small talk, Elijah tried to dig up how much of the situation had been leaked to either social media or the news (too much for comfort) and Rene scrolled through local news until he could confirm the roads were starting to clear. That meant investigational services would arrive soon. Iain couldn't think of much to contribute once the chatter had died away. Fatigue had started to pull at him.

Igraine sent Iain a strained and concise message asking if he was all right, that she had spoken to the Owens, which was as obvious a panic as Igraine would ever get in a text message. He told her he was fine and waiting to be told they could all go home. It was not a lie. Cyrus was not something he was going to explain in a text.

Cyrus, eventually, leaned over and put his head on Iain's shoulder. Iain rested his hand on Cyrus's arm.

Ghosts couldn't sleep so much as go out of focus for a while, from what Igraine and other members of his family had told him, but Iain was half dozing and Cyrus was so settled into place that neither of them noticed right away when the ballroom doors opened again.

Temple put both her hands down on the table and pushed herself to her feet. "It's the service," she said.

It was. Avery stood at the ballroom entrance with two uniformed officers on either side of him. He met Temple's eyes and waved for her to join them. He had removed his tie at some point. He was too far away to tell for sure, but Iain assumed he still looked exhausted.

"Will you come with me?" Temple asked. It took Iain a second to realize she was speaking to him.

Elijah and Rene both looked surprised. Cyrus did not. Cyrus looked unhappy, the corners of his mouth turned down. When Iain stood, he stayed seated for a moment. But when Iain stepped back from the table he rose to his feet.

They walked through the center of the room together. This time, no one reached out to grab Temple and chat with her.

She murmured, "I will try to make this go as smoothly as possible, but I'm afraid there may be some dramatics."

Cyrus said, "If Avery tries to touch you, I'll-"

"I'm not banishing anyone tonight," Iain whispered. It made Temple frown, but there wasn't time to explain. Cyrus clamped his mouth shut and glowered for the last few feet it took them to reach Avery and the officers.

Up close, Avery did not look tired. Avery looked furious. His mouth was a flat line and his eyes were stormy. He held his hand out for his sister, but she didn't take it, and his expression cracked for a moment. He turned it into an introductory gesture instead, indicating each of the officers in turn. "This is Inspector Liu and Inspector Bradshaw. Inspectors, this is my sister, Temple."

Temple introduced Iain without acknowledging Avery. "Inspectors, this is one of our guests, Iain Howell. We would like to speak to you in private at your soonest convenience."

"I don't think this is appropriate," Avery said.

"I have something I need to share with the Inspectors," Temple said.

Avery looked between them. "Iain Howell is simply a guest. He admitted to me that tonight made him upset," he said, which was an interesting representation of a conversation Elijah had had on Iain's behalf. "I don't think this is appropriate, Temple. The Inspectors were severely delayed by the weather and they need to interview you. Let's leave this until later, shall we?"

Inspector Liu turned to Iain. She was tall, wore two stars on her collar, and had a green hair stick holding her black hair back. It was the same green as her uniform jacket. "We have time to speak with anyone who needs to talk to us," she said.

Avery grit his teeth. He clapped his hands together. "Of course. Shall we?"

When they exited the ballroom, Temple pulled the door all the way shut behind them. She looked at Inspector Liu and said, "I have reason to believe that _Lake Before Midnight_ is a forgery and that several irregularities in our family finances this past year may be connected to it. I would also like to make a statement."

"Temple, what are you doing?" Avery asked. He flinched when Inspector Bradshaw stepped up and put his hand on Avery's arm, but not enough to free himself.

Temple looked at him. The corners of her eyes were pinched. She breathed in with her mouth closed, and Iain realized she was trying not to cry again. "You used me, Avery," she said. "And I can never forgive myself for what you did to Cyrus Merrick."

There was a brief, still moment. Iain saw Liu and Bradshaw exchange a look. Next to him, Cyrus tensed and took half a step forward, on a trajectory to put himself between Avery and Temple.

But Avery didn't lunge for her. The surprise on his face melted into ice. His voice froze in the air. "My sister has a habit of storytelling," he said. "It's unfortunate that she's chosen to make a scene now. You must understand that she's in shock. Discovering the body took a lot out of her."

"We'll take everything down," Inspector Bradshaw promised.

Iain watched him lead Avery away. They walked in the direction of the entry, and Avery's office. Another officer joined them at the end of the hallway. Avery didn't protest, or scream, or try to bolt out the front door. He just walked with them, until they had passed the staircase in the entrance and Iain couldn't see them anymore.

Temple wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry," she said. "I think I need to sit down."

Inspector Liu took her… somewhere, after not quite commanding but definitely warning Iain that she expected to find him in this exact spot when she returned. There were so many rooms in this house. Iain watched them go, too, and hoped for Temple's sake that at least they ended up somewhere without any art on the walls. They were barely out of earshot when Cyrus stepped in front of him, his hands shaking at his sides.

"He's going to try to make it sound like she's lost her mind," Cyrus spat.

"I guess so."

"He can't get away with this."

"He's not going to."

Cyrus raised his head.

Iain stepped forward and wrapped both his hands around one of Cyrus's. "Avery still thinks all I do are blessings and banishments," he said. "He's not going to get away with it. Not with calling Temple crazy, and not with killing you."

Cyrus folded his free arm around Iain's shoulders. Iain rested his head in the crook of Cyrus's neck.

When Inspector Liu came back, there was a lot to explain.

***

Iain had forgotten that leaving Pointche would mean getting back on a ferry.

The water was calmer this time, but the cold rain from the storm had left things rougher than he'd like. He had to run to the nearest corner store to the docks and run back to avoid missing the ferry. The common wisdom was that ginger potions should be drunk at least half an hour before you got on the boat, or the plane, or whatever else was going to make you sick. Iain downed his with about thirty seconds to spare before the ferry left the docks.

"How about this time we sit down and stay in one place?" Elijah suggested.

It helped that this time, on the way back, there were less passengers. They were taking the earliest ferry of the day after half a night spent in the Dolyns' house and the other half spent in the ferry terminal. Temple had offered them the use of a guest room, not the one she'd given to Cyrus, but Iain had blanched. Rene had also offered to put them up in the hotel room he'd booked, since he had never planned on returning home the same night as the party, but Iain had begged Elijah to turn it down. He just wanted to go home.

They found a table in a far corner, away from any other passengers. Iain sank onto the bench and folded his arms on the table. He would have put his head down if the ginger potion hadn't been sloshing in his gut.

"Do you think anyone else figured out what was going on?" It was the first time Iain had asked about what had happened since they'd left the building.

"No," Elijah said. "People came over and asked me and Rene why you'd gone off with Temple. I wanted to say we didn't know, but Rene thought people wouldn't buy that. He said Temple wanted moral support and you were a friend."

Iain wished he'd known that earlier. He should've asked. "I guess I don't care if anybody in Pointche thinks I was dating Temple."

"I think people think Temple and Cyrus were a thing and she killed him out of jealousy," Elijah said. At the horrified look on Iain's face, he held up both his hands. "Hey, I didn't contribute anything to that. I just heard people talking about why it took so long for her to come back. Rene heard somebody saying maybe Avery disapproved, so it wasn't everybody."

"I missed a call from my mother while you were getting breakfast," Iain said. "I told her we were getting on the ferry and weren't going to have service for a while. I'm not ready to deal with whatever she's heard from your parents."

"I'm so glad I am not going to have to be there when you call her back," Elijah said.

"Ha, ha."

Elijah smiled and shook his head. "Are you going to tell her what actually happened?"

"The service would rather I not," Iain said, dryly. "But I don't see how I'm going to avoid it."

None of the Inspectors had said it to him directly, of course. But from watching one of their mediums interview Cyrus (who had insisted that Iain be present in the room, a request Iain would never have turned down), he thought he had an idea of how things had gone. It would all be in the papers later and he would know how right he had been then. But it seemed like Avery had been buying art to facilitate forgeries of it, then reselling the real pieces on the underground market and eventually selling some of the forgeries too, making double the profit. The fact that Temple had invited Cyrus to the unveiling of _Lake Before Midnight_ had put his entire operation in jeopardy.

It helped that he'd tripped up and kept a forgery and an original in the house at the same time. But even if he hadn't, Cyrus would have eventually identified _Lake Before Midnight_ as a fake.

It was nearly ten in the morning. By now, someone might have told Avery that Cyrus had given a statement.

Iain nearly wished he'd been in the room to see Avery's reaction.

The waters quieted down the further from Pointche they got. The skies cleared, too, until there was sun on the deck. The ginger potion had stopped swirling in Iain's stomach and he didn't feel queasy when he got to his feet.

"I'm going outside for a minute," he said. "It's probably the only peace I'll get until my family's done with me."

"I'll save your spot."

The deck wasn't empty, but it was also big enough that Iain could walk up to the railing alone. The wind was high as the ferry cut through the water and the odds that anyone would hear anything he said were slim to none. He folded his arms on the railing and shut his eyes for a minute. It was good to feel the sun on his face and breathe in salt air that didn't smell like a thunderstorm.

He had been out there long enough to feel sunsoaked when Cyrus asked, "What next?"

Iain didn't open his eyes. His heart squeezed in his chest, and he felt his stomach swoop, but it wasn't from seasickness. "I thought you might have decided to stay in Pointche," he said, quietly.

The ferry bobbed gently in the water. The engines churned, and the wind whistled past them.

"I thought about it," Cyrus finally said. "I've been behind you. I figured out a trick for fading in and out, and I didn't know how you would take me following you out here. I thought it was better to say hi when you were away from Elijah."

"I'm not upset." Iain opened his eyes. Relief gripped him when he turned to see Cyrus standing at the rail by his side. He was really there. It wasn't just a voice in Iain's head. "Did you… Did you think I would be upset?"

Cyrus was watching the water. The ferry left a churning white wake behind it. "I didn't want to put you in an awkward position."

"What did the Inspector say to you?" Iain asked. He bit his lip right after the words escaped. He'd tried so hard to avoid asking that question, after the interviews, when the medium had insisted on speaking to Cyrus alone for a moment. And later, they'd finally been allowed to leave, and Cyrus… Cyrus hadn't been there, when they got out to the taxi.

"I take it that haunting a person is considered poor form," Cyrus drawled.

Iain felt himself bristle. "I'm not worried about being haunted."

"I had to think about it."

Iain looked back at the water. His chest squeezed again. He was being selfish. He'd been feeling selfish ever since that moment in the upstairs bathroom, Cyrus's hand against his face. Mediums weren't supposed to tether spirits to them indefinitely. They were supposed to assist and act as guides. Ghosts weren't meant to be _kept._

"If you… aren't ready," Iain made himself say, "you're welcome to stay with me."

Cyrus raised an eyebrow. "Ready?"

Iain's face warmed. He shifted his weight. This was the responsible thing to say. This was his duty. His mother would kill him for not offering. Selfishness tied his tongue for a moment, but he managed to explain, "I could help you move on."

"Ah," Cyrus said. "You mean get rid of me."

The ground (or what there was of it, on the ferry) dropped out from under him. Iain gripped the railing. He felt himself sway, and he watched Cyrus reach out and touch his arm. Iain took a breath to steady his voice. He said, "No! No. It's a thing we do."

Cyrus rubbed his hand along Iain's arm. His touch was a cool reprieve from the sun. "How is that different from banishment?"

"It - It is different. You request it. It's how we help." Iain thought he would've been sick, if he hadn't drunk that corner store ginger potion. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to go back to sitting down somewhere private, with Cyrus touching his face. Not talking about being gotten rid of.

There was a brief second where Cyrus flickered out of view, and Iain nearly shouted.

When he came back, Cyrus had a hand on Iain's chest and one arm around his shoulder. "Shh," he said, tugging Iain close. "Shh. I'm sorry. It's hard to stay solid out here."

Iain let himself be folded up. He was sure that to anyone else it looked like he was gripping the railing with one hand and bending over into the wind for no reason, but at least no one could see his face. He swallowed twice before he could speak. "I'm not supposed to be selfish. I'm not supposed to ask you to stay."

"You haven't done anything you're not supposed to. You haven't asked me to stay," Cyrus said, reasonably. His hand gently tightened on Iain's shoulder.

"I'm supposed to let you go. Not ask to get to know you."

"You haven't asked me that, either." Cyrus winced when Iain squeezed his eyes shut. "Iain. Iain, look at me. I'm teasing. I told you, I'm not good at lines."

"I don't want you to leave," Iain said. His face was hot. He shook his head. The wind was mussing his hair, and tugging at the fabric of his shirt, but in front of him Cyrus was totally untouched. His hair hung neat at his side and his clothes didn't move in the breeze. "I'm sorry. I'm not doing this… how I'm supposed to. This isn't how it's supposed to go."

The hand on Iain's chest slid up to cup the back of his head. A tense smile settled on Cyrus's face. "It's not," he agreed. "I'd much rather be alive for this."

Iain just looked at him. The tightness in his chest began to ache. Distantly, he heard the door to the deck open and shut. The sounds of other people vanished. No one wanted to deal with the wind just for the sun. Iain was the only one left out here.

Iain and Cyrus.

"I'm not leaving," Cyrus told him, softly. The wind didn't pull at his words, either. He sounded like he wasn't speaking through any wind at all. "Not unless you want me to."

It was going to be difficult to explain to his family. But his family was an hour away at least, and none of them could reach him here. None of them had been there when the cold struck Iain in the chest, and none of them had seen Cyrus pull himself back together. Iain had been awake most of the night. He had started to wonder whether the Speaking ever really chose him, or if it had been Cyrus, and the magic had just followed. But that was the kind of thing only Fate could know.

Iain had to ask, though. He felt it. It was important to do the asking. "I want you to stay. I want to get to know you."

Cyrus bent down and touched their foreheads together. "I haven't left," he said. "Don't mourn me yet, Iain. I'm still here."

Iain said, "No more jokes about banishment."

"No," Cyrus agreed.

Iain tilted his head back and pressed his mouth to Cyrus's. Cyrus's hand tightened in his hair, and he pulled Iain tight against his chest. He felt as solid as anything Iain had ever held in his arms.


End file.
